The Shame!
by Commander
Summary: A U.S. Acres fanfic. Booker is ashamed of and angry at both of his parents, and decides to run away. Meanwhile, a new rooster blows in and threatens to usurp Roy's standing!
1. Hereditary

(AN: Hi again!

After watching all of my Garfield and Friends DVDs—all seventy-two episodes—I finally feel that I am ready for, to my knowledge, the first U.S. Acres fanfic on this site. I hope it will be good… I hope I'll be able to keep everyone in character… yadda yadda yadda… but most of all, I hope you all like it. And if you don't think it should be in this category, please tell me, and I shall move it! Whee!

U.S. Acres, Garfield and Friends, and related stuff don't belong to me. If it did, I'd be writing official stories, not sitting here writing fanfiction. So Jim Davis and/or any of his legal eagles, if you're reading this, please don't sue me. I'm just an incoming college student with an over-active imagination.)

O.o.O

As usual, it was a sunny, pleasant day on the farm.

And also as usual, Orson Pig was floating in an inner tube in his wallow, completely engrossed in a book… today, that book was _1984_ by George Orwell.

"Wow…" Orson mused to himself, "how could one ever live in a world where the vocabulary keeps getting reduced?" He suddenly looked up. "Oh, hi! It's great to have you here. And you picked a good time to come, too. If you had come just a week or two ago, you would have stumbled into a chaotic mess! It all started when—wait, don't leave! I promise you, this is the probably the single greatest thing that's ever happened here before! Please, sit down and get comfortable… there's a log over there, if you don't care for mud. Can't understand how you couldn't, but anyway… It all started on a morning very much like this one…"

O.o.O

"Wake up, llama-breath."

Booker groaned as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. _Ah, yes, now I remember why Sheldon and I usually sleep in the old chicken coop instead of with our other siblings._ "Tonya, has anyone ever explained to you the concept of 'sleeping in'?"

Tonya just flashed Booker her grin that had made her infamous throughout the entire coop. "Hey, Booker, whaddaya call a midget fortune teller who's just escaped from prison?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," groaned Booker. Tonya was constantly cracking jokes—most of them bad ones.

"A small medium at large!" Tonya threw her head back and cackled as only a chick on the verge of becoming a hen can. "Get it? Isn't it the most… ha, ha!… the most hilarious thing you've ever heard? Ha ha ha!"

Booker chose to ignore his sister's merriment as he jumped to the ground. "Have you awoken Sheldon with one of your hilarious cracks yet?" he asked his sister.

"Yeah, the same one," said Tonya. "He seemed to like it better than you."

"Well, no offense to him, but being stuck in an egg for your entire 'life', if you want to call it that, can make one a bit insane." Booker headed for the doorway.

"Don't tell me that you're going to be out chasing worms all day," said Tonya, suddenly blocking his way out. "You need to spend quality time with your siblings!"

"I do!" cried Booker. "Why do you think I hang around with Sheldon all the time?"

"I mean your _other_ siblings, meat-head! Alison told me that she almost forgot your name!"

"I doubt that," snapped Booker, giving Tonya a cynical look.

"Well, okay, she didn't say that, but she did say that she wishes that you were around more often! Come on, Booker! Sheldon's not your only sibling!"

"But I like Sheldon better than the rest of you. I mean, Sheldon's never sprung any traps on me when I enter the coop."

Tonya let out a guffaw. "I'll never forget the look on your face as you hung there upside down… one of my better efforts, if I do say so myself!"

Booker held out his wings, silencing Tonya. "I rest my case—"

"Booker, look at your wing!"

"Look, Tonya, whatever stupid prank you have in mind—"

"No, I'm serious!" Tonya bent Booker's wing up so he could see the underside of it.

"OUCH!" screamed Booker. "Tonya!"

"Sorry," she said quickly. "But look! You've got a white feather!"

Examining his wing, Booker's eyes grew wide. "You're right, I do. I wonder why?"

Tonya shrugged. "Let's go ask Mom."

Booker made a face. "I'd rather not ask Mom _anything_."

"Jeez, Booker, can you hold a grudge or what?" cried Tonya incredulously. "Look, even though you're still mad at her for 'abandoning' you, you've gotta admit that she's the only one that can tell you what that is."

Booker folded his wings and pointed his beak in the air stubbornly. "We could ask one of the other hens."

"You've gotta be kidding me!" cried Tonya. "You know how stupid they all are!"

"True…" Booker said reluctantly.

"Come on," she snapped, pulling Booker out of the coop.

O.o.O

"Well, Booker, what do you know!" cried Joanna, inspecting her son's wing. "You've got your first white feather!"

"We kinda figured that one out," said Tonya impatiently. "What does it mean?"

"It means that you're growing up, Booker," said Joanna, trying to pull her timid son Alexander off her leg. "Pretty soon, the rest of you should be getting white feathers too."

"And then we'll be all white, just like you?" Nicole asked.

Joanna nodded. "You chicks are growing up so fast… except you, Sheldon." She turned to her son Sheldon, who still hadn't hatched from his egg. "Sheldon, you've got to hatch _now!_ Your growth will be stunted enough! You can't live your whole life in there!"

"I'd rather live my whole life in here than out there as a mutated chicken!" said Sheldon defiantly, his voice muffled from behind his shell.

"Wow… I'm growing up?" cried Booker. "This is… this is great! Come on, Sheldon, let's show everyone else!" Booker leapt out of the coop, motioning for his agoraphobic brother to follow him.

O.o.O

Joanna's chicks were considered by all the other hens to be "weird". Joanna, while not using that exact phraseology herself, did have to admit that her chicks stood out from the other hens'. In a good way, of course. Her chicks were smart… just like she was.

Tonya and her pranks, Alison and Logan's many checkers rounds, Alexander's extreme shyness (except to his mother and sister Tonya), Nicole's depth of thought, Karley's photographic memory, and Julius and Ryan's habit of building just about anything they could out of sticks were all abnormalities in the normally slow chicken. And that was leaving out Booker and Sheldon, quite possibly the most abnormal chicks of them all.

Was it because they had been hatched by a… pig?

The new chicken coop was still under construction when Joanna laid her ten eggs in the old one, the one that she had raised her previous chicks in for years. When the new one was finished, Joanna gathered all of her eggs and moved them there. Or so she thought. When she got there and counted her eggs, she realized that she was two shy.

After finding other hens to sit on her other eight eggs (and that was harder than it sounded, as the hens didn't want to sit on anyone's eggs but their own… and besides, they might confuse her eggs with theirs!) she hurried back to the old coop and found, to her complete surprise, a _pig_ in there!

"What are you doing here?" she asked, trying her hardest not to laugh.

"Oh…!" cried the pig, clearly surprised to see her. "Are… are these your eggs?" he asked, sitting up and pointing to the two missing eggs.

"Yes, I must not have grabbed them all when I was moving them to the new coop," said Joanna, smiling incredulously at the thought of a pig trying to hatch chickens.

"Oh… well, you see, when I saw these two eggs here, I thought that they'd been abandoned and so I thought I'd better take care of them and… you want them back, don't you?"

Joanna nodded. "Thanks for taking care of them while I was gone, but I think I can manage them from here."

"That move must have been tough," said the pig, standing up and stretching his legs. "How many eggs did you lay?"

"Ten," said Joanna with a sigh.

"Wow, that's a good number of eggs!" The pig looked at the eggs and smiled, almost sadly. "Well, you two get to go back to your mommy now."

"Hold it." Joanna couldn't believe what she was seeing and hearing. "Did you actually _want_ to hatch those eggs?"

The pig clasped his hands behind his back and traced the ground with one foot in an embarrassed manner. "Well… although I wasn't sitting on them long, I was getting pretty attached to them."

Joanna finally let out her first uninhibited laugh. "If you want to that bad, then sure, you can hatch them."

The pig looked shocked. "Really? You wouldn't mind?"

"Mind? I'm glad of it! Now I only have eight eggs to sit on. Still a lot, but less than ten! You can hatch them, then bring them to me. And since you'll have done so much for them already, I'll let you name them. That is, only if you want to do all that."

"I'd love to!" cried the pig, sitting back down on the eggs.

"Is that your final answer?" asked Joanna with a twinkle in her eye.

"Of course! You have my word! Say, how long will it take to hatch them?"

Strolling out the coop, Joanna flashed him a smile. "About a week or so."

"A… _week?_" The pig looked like he was about to faint.

"Yep. Have fun." Chuckling, Joanna left the old coop, hearing the pig heave a heavy sigh.

About a week later, the pig came to the new coop. Joanna had been expecting him, as all the eggs she had been sitting on had hatched—five girls and three boys.

"Oh, there you are. Did you hatch my last two chicks?" Joanna asked with a smile.

The pig laughed nervously. "Well, you might say that I did…"

Joanna glared at him. "What?"

"Well, here's one. I named him Booker." The pig reached behind him and handed Joanna a perfectly healthy chick. "Because, well, I like to read, and…"

"Where's the other one?" screeched Joanna.

Hesitatingly, the pig reached behind him and held an egg with two legs sticking out. Joanna quickly fought down a hearty laugh that formed without warning in her throat.

"I don't think he wants to hatch any more than this," said the pig apologetically. "So I named him Sheldon."

"Well… thank you… I'm sure he'll hatch eventually," said Joanna, giggling madly. "Thank you very much for hatching them… well, for hatching Booker and half-hatching Sheldon."

Perhaps because of this, as Booker and Sheldon grew, they daily did something that most chicks never did at all—they wandered out of the coop and explored the rest of the farm, getting to know all the other non-chicken residents. Not only getting to know them, in fact, but becoming fast friends with them.

Thus, when Booker was told the meaning of his white feather on the underside of his wing, he wanted to tell all of his friends.

"I wonder what I'll look like when I'm all grown up," he mused to Sheldon as the two made their way to the main part of the farm.

"Probably like Mom, I'd guess," said Sheldon.

"Yeah, but Mom's a girl. I've never seen a grown-up boy chicken before!" said Booker suddenly. "I wonder if they look any different? Oh, hey, Roy."

"Hello, pip-squeaks," said Roy, the resident rooster. "What are you two chattering about?"

Booker proudly showed Roy his white feather. "I'm growing up!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" cried Roy in surprise. "It just seems like yesterday when you two were born! Or half-born, in Sheldon's case."

"We were wondering what Booker's gonna look like when he's all grown up," said Sheldon.

Roy grinned and tossed his head back, causing his comb to wave dramatically. "Well, I'd assume that you'd look a lot like me."

"Why would I look like _you?_" asked Booker cynically. "You're not a chicken."

Roy stared at Booker, blinked, and then threw back his head and roared with laughter. Of course, Roy roaring with laughter was not an uncommon sight, but it left both Booker and Sheldon nonplused.

"What's so funny?" asked Booker.

"Ah haa haaa hee hee ho ho… hah ha ha!" Roy was on the ground, clutching his belly from laughing so much. "Of _course_ I'm a chicken! What else would I be?"

Sheldon undoubtedly blinked. "I thought you were a rooster!"

"Well, of course I'm that too… 'rooster' is just a fancy way of saying male chicken! Just like a hen is a female chicken… you know?" He finally stopped laughing. "You guys seriously didn't know that?"

"You mean," said Sheldon thoughtfully, "that we're going to grow up to be roosters?"

"Well, Booker will," said Roy, grinning maliciously. "And if you ever get out of that shell, you might too."

"_Wait!_" cried Booker. This new revelation—that he was the same species as Roy, imagine that!--brought up another question of his. One that he had had for a long time, but he had never asked, because the answer didn't seem all that important. Besides, probably only his mother would have known, and he only talked to her when it was absolutely necessary. "Does that mean that you're our… _father?_"

Booker was hoping that Roy would have said "Of course not!" or something to that effect, even though he almost knew the answer before he asked. "Of course I am! Do you see any other roosters around here?" Roy bit his wing to keep himself from laughing any further. "Wow, all this time I thought you guys knew…"

Booker couldn't take it anymore.

"AAAAAUUUUGGGHHHH!" he screamed, pressing his hands against his head and running of like a madman… mad chicken.

"Jeez," mumbled Sheldon, "it's not _that_ bad."

"I don't see what his problem is," said Roy disapprovingly. "He thinks _he_ has problems? Look at me! I've got an oblong sphere for a son!"

"Yeah, but… _HEY!_" cried Sheldon.

Roy ran off, laughing insanely. "Wow, you guys are making me laugh so much it hurts to breathe! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Sheldon sighed to himself. "Great… now Booker's going to go into his nervous breakdown stage. I'd better go warn Mom… although he's probably already there."

"Help! Help! Panic and terror!" Heeeeelp!"

"Oh great…" mumbled Sheldon. He had no time to mumble anything else, for the constantly panic-stricken duck Wade had grabbed him in pure fright.

"SHELDON, WE ARE ALL DONE FOR!"

"What is it now?" asked Sheldon.

"It's…" Wade thought for a moment. "I do not know, actually. But I saw your brother running and screaming, which surely means that—"

"It's alright, Wade!" cried Sheldon. "Booker's just screaming because he found out certain things about his heredity that he would rather have not known—"

"Di-di-did you say heredity?" stammered Wade, the terror in his eyes growing more pronounced.

"…yeah…" Sheldon said slowly.

"OH, FLEE IN TERROR! HEREDITARY SECRETS FRIGHTEN ME SO! WHO KNOWS, NEXT ONE OF US MIGHT DISCOVER THAT WE ARE THE LONG LOST DESCENDANT OF LOUIS PASTEUR! HEEELLLP!" Wade tore off into the distance.

"I think I'll go lay down for awhile…" said Sheldon.


	2. Buck

(AN: Sorry for the lack of updates… But hopefully I'll feel like writing more often now, since I got a new laptop as a graduation present from my parents, and I transferred all of my stories onto it. The computer I used to write on—the 1997 Gateway up in the guest bedroom—worked fine, but it's rather nice to have a computer that doesn't take forever to load… ;) So here's chapter two!)

O.o.O

"Orson! Orson! Where are you?"

It was rather pointless for Booker to yell that, for Orson was where he usually was—floating on an inner tube in his wallor, reading a book. Hearing Booker, he put the book down. "I'm here, Booker. What's the matter!"

The chick, with a flying leap, landed straight on Orson's inner tube. "Is it really true that Roy's a chicken?"

Orson blinked. "…Well, of course it's true. You didn't know that?"

"Apparently, I'm an idiot," muttered Booker.

"You're not an idiot!" cried Orson. "You're just young. Everybody has to learn everything they know sometime."

It was Booker's turn to blink. "…What?"

"Oh, never mind," said Orson with a shrug.

"And so… he's really… my _father?_" Booker shuddered.

"Well, yes… what's wrong with that?"

Booker grimaced. "I guess, I always kinda hoped that whoever my father was, he'd make up for my mother."

Orson cocked his head in confusion. "And what's wrong with your mother?"

"Oh, where to begin!" Booker stood up dramatically on the inner tube, somehow able to keep his balance. "She's gotta be the weirdest chicken in the coop, and she doesn't hide it, either. She'll say the weirdest things in front of the other hens and chicks, and they'll all talk about her and say she's a freak… and she is! She gets so annoyed at me and Sheldon for leaving the coop so often… what's so bad about that? And she's always nagging at Sheldon to hatch. Well, if he doesn't want to hatch, then he shouldn't! She's inattentive, but when she actually decides to be a good parent, she's _way _too strict. And—"

"Okay, okay, I get the picture!" Orson clamped a hand over Booker's beak. "Alright then, so you don't care for your mother. And now you're saying that your father doesn't help matters?"

Booker snorted. "Yeah, sure, my father. He's tricked me with fake worms more times than I can count… and that's minor, compared to the other things he's done to me."

"I suppose you have a point," said Orson.

"Why don't you just kick him off the farm?" asked Booker.

"Now, Booker, you have to realize that, number one, a good rooster is hard to come by, and number two, Roy's actually done a very good job as our rooster."

"Sure… I find that hard to believe."

Orson sighed, picked up Booker, and set him on his lap. "You've got to understand the inner workings of a rooster's mind, Booker… well, someday you will, I guess, better than I do. It confuses me, to be honest. But they seem to have some sort of hierarchy… or something. You see, before Roy came to the farm, we had two roosters, who, somehow, managed to share their 'power' equally. But they were getting old, so the farmer decided that we needed a new rooster—so he brought in Roy. Now, that year, we had three roosters, which is a very volatile situation! However, Roy respected his 'rookie' position and let the other two roosters continue their charges. Roy only took two hens that first year—"

"What do you mean, took?" Booker asked.

"Well, with three of them, they all didn't just run after every hen, they had a system… and so that year, Roy was only the father of one of the hen's chicks, since you know, the hens switch off every year."

"Yeah, I know that," said Booker. "One year half lay chicks while the other half lay eggs for eating, and then the next year they switch."

Orson nodded. "Well, anyway, the three rooster situation didn't last long after that. The two old ones died, and Roy's been our only rooster ever since."

"How long has that been?" Booker asked.

"Hmm… I think he came about three years ago," said Orson.

"Oh…" Booker's face fell. Even though he had somehow known right when Roy said he was a chicken, he had been hoping that Orson would tell him that it was all just a lie… but it wasn't.

Both of his parents were not only freaks, but jerks!

Orson helped Booker out of the wallor and onto dry land. "I'm sorry… this distresses you so," said Orson, not knowing what else to say.

Booker sighed. "I can just take happiness in knowing that I'm nothing like either of my parents."

O.o.O

Roy would have begged to differ with Booker's comment.

"Lemme guess," he said to Sheldon, who, after thinking it over for awhile, decided that he'd like to find out more information about his heritage. Roy smiled at the 'egg with legs'. "Your mother is Joanna, right?"

"How did you know that?" Sheldon asked, surprised.

"It's so easy," said Roy, chuckling. "Booker's _exactly _like her."

"How so?"

"You can see it in everything he does! His gritty determination, his intelligence, his wit…"

"Hmm…" Sheldon considered this. "I guess you're right!" He had never thought of it before, but Roy was right—Booker was a lot like Mom. Just like Tonya was… "I can't believe that Booker and I didn't figure out for ourselves that you're our dad, with Tonya being the way she is."

"Who's Tonya?" asked Roy. "Your sister?"

"Yep, and _she's _exactly like _you_!"

"To pull a page from your book, how so?"

"She's constantly pulling pranks on all of us and cracking bad jokes. Just like you!"

Roy sniffed. "My jokes aren't bad."

The two chickens, who had been walking this entire time, were now in front of the chicken coop. "Well, Sheldon, I guess the line ends here," said Roy.

"I don't really want to go back into the coop…" said Sheldon hesitatingly. "All I'll hear is Mom yelling at me to hatch." Sheldon, while not harboring nearly as negative feelings for his mother that Booker did, still would rather avoid her constant harassing.

But it was too late for Sheldon to escape, for at that moment Joanna leaned out of the coop. "Sheldon! There you are! Get back in here like a good chick. Where's your brother?"

Roy answered. "He ran off into the sunset screaming. But he'll probably be back… eventually."

Joanna fluttered her way to Sheldon, scooping him up. "We'll, he'd better get back here soon. Something's happening around here. I don't know what, but all of the hens seem pretty excited."

"Those other hens would get excited over a lightbulb getting changed," sniffed Roy. He grinned at Joanna. "But you, my dear, need a lot more to get _you _shaken up."

Roy took Joanna's wing in his and brought it up to his beak, as if kissing it. Joanna giggled in the flirtatious way that was expected of her.

He knew he shouldn't play favorites, but Roy knew that Joanna was his favorite hen, by far. Well, it should have been obvious… because both of them were strange, as far as chickens go. They weren't just smarter than the average chicken, they were almost _too _smart than what a chicken ought to be. Roy could remember when _he _was just a chick, and that terrible feeling of isolation he had felt. He was just too different from any other chicken, and he always felt like an outsider from all of his siblings… and even his mother. He had never asked Joanna about it, but somehow he knew that she had gone through that too.

They were just two freaks who, by all accounts, shouldn't have mated and brought more freaks into the world. But at least their children had each other…

And besides all that, Joanna's independent state of mind and determination were very, very attractive to Roy.

One of the other hens ran out of the coup. "Joanna! Joanna! Have you heard?"

"Heard what?" asked Joanna. "I can tell that something's going on around here, but—"

"We're getting a new rooster!"

Roy's jaw dropped. "_**What**_?!" he cried in shock. "Why am I always the last to know about these sort of things?"

The hen laughed. "Don't worry, Roy, he won't be replacing you. The farmer just thinks that with all the work you have to do by yourself, it will be nice to have some help around here, don't you think?"

"Well… I guess… but remember the _last _time we got a new rooster?"

"Ooh, Plato!" The hen nearly swooned. "He was _sooo _romantic! But he was also a lousy guard. Which is why we'll have two! You've done such a good job, Roy, and I'm sure that this new rooster will too! He's not going to replace you, don't worry."

Roy made a face. "Yeah, well, you'd better be right," he mumbled, although he could feel impending doom taking root in the pit of his stomach. He knew first-hand how fickle the hens were.

Well, all of them except Joanna.

"Here he comes!" squealed another hen. All of the hens tumbled out of the coop.

Roy couldn't believe it. "Oh, am I _so _getting replaced," he mumbled.

"I can't see him that well," said Sheldon. "Is he really handsome?"

"Handsome doesn't even begin to cover this guy," moaned Roy. "He looks like the Brad Pitt of the chicken world."

He was tall. Muscular. His black feathers couldn't even begin to hide those muscles. His eyes were deep and enchanting. His tail, almost taller than he was and sprouting with feathers, brought to mind the volume of a peacock's tail. He was, in a word, a hunk.

All of the hens thought so, anyway.

Before anyone could say "trousers", all of the hens—except Joanna—were crowded around him, clutching his wings, his legs, his chest… most looked about ready to swoon.

"Hello, ladies," he said in a voice that sounded like the romantic male lead on a soap opera. "I'm Buck, and I'm your new rooster. And I'm happy to be here, too… with so many beautiful ladies."

Two hens actually DID faint.

Joanna was the only hen who hadn't run to his side, but she was fanning herself with one wing. "Holy smokes, he _is _attractive, isn't he?"

"Yes… what a pretty-boy, I must agree," fumed Roy.

O.o.O

(AN: And the plot thickens. ;) See you next chapter!)


	3. First Impressions

(AN: Can't you predict my next words? I apologize for not updating sooner. However, this time, I have at least a semi-valid excuse. I was on a three week vacation on Ye Merry Olde England. But now I'm back in boring old Nebraska, and I shall update for yoooooou!)

O.o.O

Orson was walking Booker back to the henhouse.

"You really shouldn't get so bent out of shape about this," said Orson comfortingly. "Just because you think your parents are… well, malevolent, doesn't mean that you're going to be like them. And besides—"

"If you're going to tell me that my parents aren't all that bad, then save your breath!" snapped Booker.

"Alright…" sighed Orson. He and Booker had now reached the top of a hill and were looking down at the henhouse. "Hey, what's going on down there?"

Booker peered down. "Probably all the hens have a new beauty secret on how to preen their feathers…"

"Wait!" Orson pointed down, presumably near the center of the circles the hens had formed. "There's a dark chicken down there, and none of our hens are dark, right? They all have white feathers!"

Squinting, Booker leaned down to see better. "You're right! I wonder who that is?"

"Well, let's go find out." Orson started running down the hill, Booker quickly following behind.

Orson finished his run down the hill, stopped to catch his breath, and spotted Roy and Joanna, watching the rest of the hens and the newcomer leave. The expressions on their faces couldn't have been more different—Joanna looked bemused and almost charmed, while Roy looked livid and about to explode.

"What's going on here?" Orson asked them. Joanna opened her beak to speak, but Roy beat her to it.

"Oh, nothing much… just some new pretty-boy rooster is moving in. Why didn't you tell me that we were getting a new rooster, huh?"

Orson threw his hands in the air in a sort of helpless gesture. "I had no idea! Who brought him here? And who is he?"

Joanna managed to speak first. "The farmer thought that Roy was having too much of a workload, apparently. He was _very thoughtful_—" she glared at Roy "—to do that, wasn't he, Roy dear?"

"Thoughtful?!" Roy shot Joanna a look of pure exasperation and rage. "His 'thoughtfulness' has probably lost me my job!"

"Roy, I really think you're overreacting," said Orson sensibly. "Remember when you first came here? We had _three _roosters!"

"You don't understand!" shrieked Roy. "They were old, they let me come in, they wanted me here! And I let them keep their position, because I knew that soon I would be the _only _rooster here! But this 'buffy Bucky' isn't old… I think he's younger than me, actually, and he certainly intends on staying! You can see it in his eyes… not only is he staying, but he wants to be the _only _rooster here! I might as well leave now!" Roy threw his hands in the air in the same manner that Orson had just moments before and stormed off.

"And I'm gonna grow up and have to go through all _that_?" Booker asked after a short silence. "I'd rather stay a kid my whole life!"

"That's why I'm staying in here," piped up Sheldon.

Orson sighed again. "Well, I suppose we'd better find out all we can about this 'buffy Bucky'…"

O.o.O

"Buffy Bucky", meanwhile, decided that _he _should find out all he could about the farm.

Having managed to shake the hens off of him (it took quite a bit of effort), Buck was now strolling about the farm, seeing what else was there besides hens, although they wouldn't be nearly as significant as those lovely ladies (wink, wink!).

He hadn't gone far before he got to the sheep pasture. In past years, there had often been more than a dozen sheep grazing the farm, but for awhile now there had been only two—Bo and Lanolin, brother and sister. The two sheep were, for once, not working. Instead, they were stretched out on lawn chairs, soaking up the sun.

Bo sat up, noticing Buck. He took off his sunglasses and blinked. "Like, check out the new rooster, sis," he drawled to his sister.

Lanolin removed _her _sunglasses and sat up. "What do you mean, new rooster?" she snapped. "Isn't one enough?"

Buck strolled up snottily to the sheep. "Aah, good morning, my wooly friends. My name is Buck, and I am new to the farm."

"Like, nice to meet you and all, man, but we do already have a rooster," said Bo matter-of-factly.

"Oh, I know that," said Buck with a sort of haughty laugh. "I'm here to help him. I can't imagine how he could handle all the duties by himself! Being a rooster is hard work!"

Lanolin snorted out loud. Roy's tasks were miniscule, and he spent more of his time cracking jokes and pulling pranks, it hardly seemed that he would need any help… unless Buck would be a guinea pig for Roy's practical jokes. "Oh, I'm sure—" she began.

"But anyway, I must be going," interrupted Buck shortly. "I can't waste all my time talking to dim-witted sheep."

"_WHAT?!_" shrieked Lanolin, eyes burning fire.

Buck laughed. "Come now, you know that sheep are the stupidest of all farm animals! Every science book says it!"

Lanolin leapt off her lawn chair, fury swallowing up her entire body. "Yeah, well, I've heard that chickens ain't exactly Einsteins either!"

"Aah, but I am the exception," said Buck, not missing a beat. "You two are the rule." With that remark, he left, walking towards the barn.

"Jeez, calm down, sis," said Bo, backing up a bit. He had seen his sister mad before, but never like _this_.

"Whose… whose _bright _idea was it to bring a new rooster! Man, give me Roy any day over that _creep!_"

"Like, have to agree with you there for once," admitted Bo. "Did you see that look in his eyes? Too sneaky for my tastes. Not cool, man."

Lanolin kicked at some of the dirt. "I wonder if anyone else has met this piece of work?"

O.o.O

Actually, at the time Lanolin said that, the only creature left on the farm that _didn't _know of Buck's presence was Wade. The pusillanimous duck was curled up in a corner of the barn, shivering with fear, thinking of terrible unknown hereditary secrets.

"Oh terror and dread, what if I really am the descendant of Louis Pasteur? And I have drunk non-pasteurized milk before! The ghost of my great-great-great-great-great-great-etcetera grandfather shall surely come to haunt me!"

Wade stopped shivering suddenly. "Wait… how could I be the long-lost descendant of Louis Pasteur? He was a human!" He wiped his brow in relief. "Phew! Getting worried there…" His breath stopped. "But… I am a duck… what if I am a descendant of Donald? Or Daffy? Or both!" Wade resumed his shivering.

At that precise moment, Buck flung open the barn door and surveyed the barn. Wade let out a yelp and dove under a pile of straw.

Buck laughed that haughty, almost cruel laugh of his. "Now what have we got here?" he asked, kicking away some of the straw… and Wade, too. Wade whimpered.

"You… you kicked me," he moaned inaudibly.

"So I did," smirked Buck. Wade forced himself to look up at his oppressor. He could feel terror—well, a normal feeling for him, but almost more terror than usual—suddenly spring up in his stomach the moment he looked into Buck's eyes. He had never seen eyes like that before. They weren't like Orson's brothers' eyes, which revealed nothing but ignorant greed instead of evil; they weren't even like the weasel's eyes, which gave the weasel the look of a sly yet nervous smuggler. This new rooster's eyes were dark, cold, and merciless… and they seemed to be laughing at him.

Buck seemed to realize just how much he was terrifying the duck. "I'm thirsty," he snapped. "Get me a drink of water."

"But…" Wade began, but didn't finish.

Buck grabbed Wade roughly by the neck and pulled him up, so close to his face that their beaks were nearly touching. "**Now**."

"Y-y-yes, Master!" whimpered Wade. Buck dropped Wade rudely, and in less than three seconds Wade had shot out the door to do his bidding.

Buck smiled and leaned against the wall. "I think I'm gonna like it here."

O.o.O

(AN: Kinda short, I know. But at least it's something! I'm gonna try my hardest to update soon, but you all know my record. Thanks for reading, reviewing, and putting up with my laziness! See you at chapter four, whenever it might be. :) )


	4. Welcome to the Coup

(AN: Ha ha, not a very long wait, considering that I'm writing this. Of course, updates after this will probably be few and far between again—starting college and all, you know. ;) But anyway, here's chapter four!)

O.o.O

Tonya, too, was regarding the new rooster suspiciously.

"I don't like the looks of that guy," she said to her seven siblings who were there—Alison, Logan, Alexander, Nicole, Karley, Julius, and Ryan.

"What's not to like?" Ryan asked innocently. "He's just a rooster."

"It's not like we'll have much contact with him anyway," added Karley.

Tonya stood up a little bit more to look out of the window of their coup. "I know, but… did you guys see that smirk on his face when all the hens came running to him? I've got a really bad feeling about this. He's probably gonna get them all infatuated with him, and then he's gonna use them all as peons to take over the world, and they'll blindly follow his every order!"

Her siblings stared at her.

"Well, okay, that might be a _little _dramatic," admitted Tonya after a brief thought. "But you get my drift, right? If he asked them to, they would. Didn't you see the way they all swooned for him?"

"Mom didn't," said timid little Alexander, almost fearfully.

"But she came close," said Logan thoughtfully. "I think you might be on to something, Tonya. It isn't like Mom to go ga-ga like that over _anyone_. If even _she's _been taken in by this new guy, you know what the rest of them will be like!"

"His slaves, basically," said Alison.

The chicks' conversation was suddenly cut short as the sound of two more creatures entering the room bounced off the wall. Not knowing who they were, but not wanting to take any chances, Tonya quickly hushed her siblings.

She needn't have worried. Booker and Sheldon were soon in plain sight, and they sat down next to their siblings, making the group of ten complete. "What are you guys holding a meeting about?" Booker asked Tonya.

"That new rooster," said Tonya, with a look of disgust. "Haven't you heard?"

"Heard? I was there when he came!" said Sheldon.

"You were?" cried Tonya. "Tell us what happened!"

And quite suddenly, Sheldon could see dimly through his shell all of his siblings save Booker crowded around him and staring at him.

"Well…" Sheldon began, "there's not that much to tell, honestly. One of the hens—Frances, I think, although I'm not sure—came running up to Mom and Roy asking them if they'd heard about the new rooster we're getting. She told them that the farmer brought him here to help Roy, not replace him, but I don't think Roy believes that. Then he showed up—"

"What did he look like?" Logan interrupted.

"I hear he's really handsome," said Nicole with a grin. Alison, Logan, and Karley giggled. Tonya shot her sisters a stern look.

"Let's continue, please, Sheldon…"

"Right. Well, I couldn't really see him—it's hard to see much from this shell. And besides, I have no clue what makes a guy 'handsome'. But apparently, he's a drop-dead-gorgeous hunk. All he had to do was fluff his tail feathers back, and all the hens nearly swooned—two actually did."

"Okay, okay, we get that!" Julius finally cried. "But what we want to know is… is he, well, _evil?_"

Sheldon undoubtedly blinked. "Evil?"

"Tonya seems to think he is," said Julius matter-of-factly.

"I'm not saying he's _evil_… necessarily…" Tonya clarified, "but he does give me a nasty taste in my mouth. Did you see any… I don't know, nasty gleam in his eyes?"

"Sheldon's not the one to ask," said Booker indignantly. "At least _I _could see him without a big shell obstructing my vision."

"Hey!" cried Sheldon. He was used to having almost everyone else make fun of his shell… but Booker was the only one who actually stood up for his decision. But now he was… _mocking _him?

"He just looked stuck-up to me," Booker continued. "Buck, I mean. I didn't get to see him that close, but I think he's going to be just like Roy—annoying, but nothing really to worry about."

"Can I beg to differ?" Tonya said, almost angrily. "I didn't see him all that well either, but I know the difference between just stuck-up and completely iniquitous!"

"What… what does ini… inikwi…" Alexander stammered.

"Iniquitous mean?" Tonya finished. "Evil. Wicked. Nasty. Immoral. Corrupt. Need I go on?"

"I think you're overreacting," muttered Booker, beginning to feel the same way Sheldon had earlier—with Tonya the way she was, how had they _not _figured out the Roy was their father? She was just as snobbish, irritating, and annoying as he was!

"I'm not!" screeched Tonya. "I tell you, that smirk he had, that glimmer in his eye… he's got something bad in mind. I don't know what, but he does. And it's not just one of the harmless—and very funny, if I hear correctly—pranks that you're always saying Roy pulls."

"They're _not _funny!" howled Booker. "You just _think _they are because you've got that same messed up sense of 'humor' he does! And Buck's _not _evil—he's just your typical conceited rooster!"

"SHUT UP!"

Tonya and Booker froze, only turning their heads to look at their sister Nicole. Nicole rolled her eyes at them. "Okay, so you both feel differently about this Buck guy. Why don't both of you find out more about him? You've both confessed that you hardly even saw him. Why don't you spy on him or something, then you'll know just how evil he is?"

"Now _that's _an idea," said Tonya thoughtfully. "I think I will." She dramatically strode to the entrance of the coup.

"Me too!" cried Booker, running after Tonya a lot less gracefully. "And I am _so _going to prove you wrong!"

O.o.O

Spying on Buck was easier than either Booker or Tonya imagined. For that night, all the hens decided to throw Buck a party to welcome him to the coup.

Joanna herded her chicks with the other hens' chicks off in a back room. "Now, you ten stay here until the party's over… the last thing I want is you getting underfoot."

Booker and Tonya shot grins, then glares at each other.

Joanna left the room, shutting the door behind her. Well, thank God that was over. Getting to, ahem, _know _Buck would be pretty difficult with her children underfoot… especially with perceptive and intelligent children like hers.

The coup was packed today, for all the rest of the farm's inhabitants were there too… and not being very tactful in their comments, Joanna couldn't help but notice.

"I'm telling you, this new rooster is a jerk, plain and simple," Lanolin was saying to Orson. "He had the gall to call me moronic right to my face!"

"Well, Lanolin…" Orson was at a loss for words, but it was his belief that he should always find the good in everyone. "You know Roy's always cracking somewhat offensive jokes… but he really doesn't mean any harm by them—"

"Trust me, I'd rather have Roy insult me any day than this new guy," snapped Lanolin.

"And, like, that's sayin' something, man," pointed out Bo.

"What did you think of him, Bo?" Orson asked.

"Like, usually my sis overreacts to this kind of stuff, but not this time, man," said Bo, shaking his head. "This new guy's givin' me bad vibes. Can't explain it, but he's got bad thoughts in his head, know what I mean?"

Tonya, who was listening from up in the rafters (somehow, she managed to climb up there), did.

"I knew it!" she hissed. "But I bet Booker won't believe them even if they told him themselves. I'd better go find 'Buffy Bucky' himself." She scampered along the rafters to where all the hens were congregated—thus, where "Buffy Bucky" himself was.

"…of course, after saving all those lovely hens from that coup fire made them want me to stay even more," he said with a haughty ring in his voice. All the hens twittered with laughter. Tonya gasped. All the hens was right—even her own mother was there!

"Mom, I can't believe _you're _falling for this piece of work!" she whispered. "God, it's worse than I thought…"

"Hey, duck," Buck suddenly snapped. A fearful looking duck—Wade, but Tonya didn't know that—meekly stumbled up. Buck snapped his fingers… uh, feathers, at him. "Get me some more chicken feed."

"Y-y-yes, master," the duck said, shaking with terror. He scampered off, still shaking.

"Oh, no way," whispered Tonya. "What a JERK with a capital… uh… I wish I knew how to spell," she said, blushing to herself. "But with all letters capitalized! I swear, Booker had better have seen that, because if he did, then even _he _would have to admit that… that…"

Tonya stopped and looked back down at the hens. Buck was continuing with his stories in which he was the hero and all the hens were back to gazing ga-ga at him… even Joanna! Tonya blinked and rubbed her eyes, making sure she wasn't seeing things. Even after that, her own mother was still… It couldn't be possible! Her mother had always been the only smart hen there… but… Why on earth was she eating up his garbage like a lovesick hen?

"Please don't tell me that you're in love with that phony!" cried Tonya, almost a little too loudly. Thankfully, no one heard her.

Not even Booker, who was, just now, peeping his head around the corner on the floor, watching and listening. Unfortunately, he had just now arrived, and had missed Buck's cruel treatment of Wade. In fact, all he was hearing was Buck's dramatic, self-centered stories.

"What's Tonya talking about?" he muttered. "He's nothing but an ego-case! Annoying, but not evil! Eh… eh… ah… AH-CHOO!"

All the hens spun around.

"_Booker!_" cried Joanna angrily, jumping out of the circle around Buck. "I _told _you to stay in the room and not get underfoot! What are you doing?"

"I, uh… Tonya's here too!... Somewhere," he added, shamefaced.

"I don't care if who else is here, if you followed her out, whatever! Just because your sister left the room doesn't mean that you can too!"

Booker couldn't believe it. He was getting reprimanded and Tonya—wherever she was, the little sneak!—was completely avoiding punishment!

"Is that your son, Joanna?" Buck said, laughing not very nicely. "Little squirt, isn't he?"

"_Annoying _little squirt," muttered Joanna. "Now, Booker, can you go back to the room by yourself or do I have to escort you?"

"I'll go myself," mumbled Booker, shaking with rage. Buck—who, while not maybe evil, was certainly more of a jerk than Booker had initially thought—just insulted him in front of his mother, and instead of coming to his rescue, Joanna had _agreed _with him!

Booker stormed off to the room where the other chicks were and slammed the door shut. Tonya, who had seen and heard all from the rafters, giggled.

"Um, excuse me, Buffy Bu… I mean Buck," someone suddenly said. Tonya stopped her giggling and peered down again, seeing Roy, who had just entered, confronting Buck.

"Ooh, this oughta be good," she said to herself, getting comfortable.

"Oh yes… old-timer… What do you want?" Buck asked, feigning courtesy.

"Old-timer or not, I'm still a resident rooster here," snapped Roy, clearly livid. He paused to get himself a bit more under control. "Look, all I want right now is to get over to the other side and get some chicken feed…"

"Hey, I'm a benevolent rooster," said Buck, smiling. "I'll let you have this area all to yourself. I'll move. See, I can be accommodating." Buck sat up and began walking over to the other side of the room.

"What's he planning?" mumbled Roy.

"What's he planning?" mumbled Tonya.

All the hens stopped moving. Then they looked at Roy. They turned to look at Buck. They looked at Roy again.

Then they followed Buck.

"Oh, no way!" cried Roy.

"Oh, no way!" cried Tonya.

In complete shock, Roy managed to grab Joanna's wing. "Joanna, you can't possibly be falling for this guy's lameness! I mean, the others maybe, but not _you!_"

Joanna shook Roy off. "And what's that supposed to mean? That I can't appreciate a handsome guy every now and then? Let go of me!"

Roy obeyed and Joanna ran to catch up with the others. Tonya, in disgust, started to climb down, having seen enough.

Buck had been right—Roy now had that area all to himself. Completely alone. He stood, his body slumped in complete dejection, dumbly watching the hens leaving. Particularly Joanna.

Joanna…

Suddenly he stood up and ran to the door, running outside in the cold night air. He flung himself on the ground, clutching his heart and gasping.

"Ooh… _ouch! _Jeez, this hurts!" he managed to moan.

Somehow, he knew what it was, even though, as far as he knew, no chicken had ever felt it before… it was heartbreak, pure and simple! At that moment he realized that he must have been in love with Joanna for a long time now, otherwise this wouldn't hurt as much as it did.

"Ugh… this hurts so bad it might move me to write poetry!" he gasped.

He managed to sit up, but his heart still felt like someone was very slowly shredding it into little pieces. "I guess… I guess I can take a hint," he muttered angrily. "I'm obviously not wanted around here… not even by Joanna!" He sniffed. "Oh jeez, this is pathetic… but whatever. I don't care. I'm _leaving!_"

O.o.O

When none of the rest of the chicks were looking, Booker pushed open a loose board and climbed out of the coup.

"My dad insults me and plays practical jokes on me… my mom _agrees _with someone who insults me and yells at me for walking out of a room… I can't take this anymore! I'm _leaving!_"

And he started walking straight forward, not looking back.

O.o.O

(AN: Keep up all those nice reviews! Until next chapter! :) )


	5. The Responsible Parent

(AN: Again, sorry for the wait… not as long as it usually is, but there you go. College has started up and updates will probably be one each weekend… and that's taking into account my other two stories, by the way. And also, I might be busy some weekends… so let's just say, I hope you were used to having updates few and far between, because they're going to be like that again. But I will not abandon this story, nor my faithful reviewers! Nightw2 and tbag2 (heh, you both have 2's at the end of your names! I never noticed that before!), you two (there's the two again… okay, I'm done now) rock the known world, including Ohio. :) Here's chapter five!)

O.o.O

Sheldon awoke early that morning, but he felt something… missing.

He couldn't quite explain it, but there was something different about the coup that morning. He stood up as quietly as he could and scanned the room through the dim obstruction of his shell.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…"

He stopped. He had nine siblings, not eight! Where was…

"Uh oh," he mumbled. "I should have seen this coming… Booker ran away! His tensions with Mom were bad enough, and Roy was probably the straw that broke the camel's back!"

Sheldon shook his head from behind his shell. Booker was hopeless! He overreacted over the littlest things, and even though he might be growing up—that white feather under his wing was physical proof of that—he could be like such a spoiled baby sometimes!

The unhatched chick kicked back the same loose board that Booker had last night. Stupid of Booker or not, the outside world was dangerous—the reason that Sheldon had never hatched! And Sheldon knew that he _had _to find his brother. Just had to.

He began walking east, into the rising sun.

O.o.O

"Out of my way!"

Tonya's restless slumber was rudely disrupted with a swift kick, sending her scooting to the other side of the chicken coup. She rubbed her eyes open crossly, to get a better look at her aggressor—although she had known the instant his foot hit her.

"Oh, if it isn't Buffy Bucky," she hissed at him. "The rooster who is so full of himself, he doesn't have any room for manners."

Buck turned around and set his hard gaze on her.

"Aaw, how sweet," he finally said, in a tone so mocking that Tonya felt like she had been slapped. "The little chick shows what a big hen she is. Adorable."

"I'm not a child!" cried Tonya. "But even a child could see what a creep you are. You're not just the harmless ego-case my brother thinks you are! Oh no, you're nothing but swine. Oh, wait, excuse me. That's insulting to pigs. You're more like the mud that the pigs wade in."

Buck was now absolutely infuriated. He marched up to Tonya and, before the chick could give any yelp of protest or alarm, grabbed her by the small neck and hoisted her up in the air.

"You don't seem to have much room in you for manners, either," he hissed at her.

Despite having his strong wings clutched around her neck, Tonya still managed to make a scoffing sound. "No, I only insult people who deserve it. Probably hard for you to understand, as you're only polite to people when it suits you best."

"Maybe if you got your facts straight, you little—"

"I have my facts straight, you arrogant bag of slime. I saw you last night! I saw what you did to that duck. You've gotten him terrified of you! You've made him your slave! And you've made all the hens your slaves too, although in a different way! Thanks to that ego of yours that they're all too stupid to see through, they'd do anything for you, _anything! _And you know it! And I saw what you did to Roy—although I guess it would be too much to ask that you treat him with respect, huh? You don't even know the meaning of the word."

Buck shook with rage as he glared at Tonya, with veins popping up even through his dark feathers, and his eyes turning bloodshot—not only freaky, but kinda gross, Tonya couldn't help but think. All of a sudden, he hurled Tonya against the wall in fury. Tonya hit the floor with a hollow thump.

"You're Joanna's whelp, aren't you?" he said, his voice shaking from his anger.

Although pain was shooting through her entire body, Tonya managed to stand up and look him directly in his bloodshot eyes. "Yes, and I'm proud of it."

"Proud." Buck guffawed rudely. "You know, I knew your mother would be the hardest to convert to my side, but my charms can work on everyone, even her. And as an added bonus, I got to enjoy that look of shocked rejection on Roy's face when she left him for me. It drove him out, you know."

"What?" cried Tonya. "You drove Roy out of the farm? What, couldn't handle competition, you pig?"

"I'll be driving you out next," he snapped at her, and turned around on one leg and strode haughtily out of the coup.

Now it was Tonya's turn to shake with rage. "He's going down," she whispered fiercely. "He's _so _going down. And I don't care if I'm technically just a kid—"

She stopped abruptly and stared at her wing—where her first white feather was just now beginning to show.

O.o.O

That night, Tonya was sitting in the coup, off in a corner by herself, nursing her wounds in a subtle way so that no one could see her doing it. Already her cunning mind had developed ways of bringing that jerk to his pitiful little knees… she was going to give him the "Tonya Treatment", two words that, when put together, sent all the rest of the coup into a frenzy.

Alexander timidly crawled up to his favorite sister. "Tonya…? What's wrong with your wing?"

"Nothing," she snapped at him. Alexander paled and shrunk back from her.

Tonya sighed in submission. "Alright, I'll tell you. That pig-head Buck strangled me and threw me against a wall, alright?"

Alexander gasped. "He… he _did?_"

"Yeah." Tonya's voice was hollow and dead-sounding. "Where the heck is Booker? If he's still convinced that Buck's harmless, I'll just have to show him what he did to me."

"What are you going to do?" Alexander asked her.

"I'm going to give him the Tonya Treatment," she said, grimacing. Alexander gulped and pulled back even more.

"Not… not the Tonya Treatment?"

"He deserves it," snapped Tonya. "Look what he did to me! And last night he terrified this duck into doing _everything _he told him to… he could have told the poor guy to leap off a cliff and the duck would have done so. And then he gave Roy the cold shoulder and, from what I heard from him, drove him out of the farm entirely. Coward. Can't face having someone else around who might upset his position."

"But—" Alexander began, but was cut off by Joanna fluttering into the coup.

She was acting strangely—strangely for Joanna, at least—and Tonya and Alexander noticed it. She looked positively annoyed, and more than a little flustered. The first thing she did upon entering the coup was counting her chicks.

"One, two, three, four, six… no wait, five… where was I? Did I count you already, Tonya? No wait, you're Logan… okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… You chicks don't know where Booker and Sheldon are, do you?"

"Haven't seen them all day," muttered Tonya darkly.

"It's late, they should know better…" Joanna stood in almost a trance for a moment, then suddenly darted out of the coup again.

"Jeez!" cried Nicole. "What's with her?"

"Probably it's because of what happened last night!" cried Tonya. She painfully raised her wing and motioned for her siblings to gather around her. "I knew it! Mom couldn't be the complete idiot she was seeming like last night. She seemed to be falling like a sack of bricks for Buck's phoniness!"

"Yeah, we haven't heard about that yet, from either you or Booker," said Ryan.

"In fact, I haven't seen Booker all day," said Karley.

"Or Sheldon either," added Alison.

"I haven't either… Booker's probably brooding because Mom caught him last night," said Tonya. She suddenly snapped upright. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Julius prodded.

"You know how he sometimes overreacts to the strangest things, right? Well, what if Mom yelling at him made him decide to… run away?"

"Oh, come on, Tonya," said Logan. "Come on, he's probably just hanging out with everyone else on the farm! You know how he and Sheldon are. Besides, even if he did run away, it wouldn't explain where Sheldon is."

O.o.O

"No, I haven't seen either of them all day. Why, can't you find them?"

Joanna very nearly pulled her feathers out. "You haven't? But where else could they be?"

"I don't know!" cried Orson. "Maybe we should search the farm for them."

"Like, I have a possible theory, mother of the chicks," said Bo suddenly, who had just ambled up without anyone noticing him, as was his custom.

"What's that?" Joanna asked.

"Like, he seemed kinda put out yesterday. You don't think he might have flown the coup, pun intended? You know how he makes a big deal out of the smallest things, man."

"But what about Sheldon?" Orson asked. "He's much more level-headed than Booker is."

"Like, he might have noticed Booker was absent and went out searching for him."

Joanna gasped, her eyes growing wide. "Oh, chicken feed! That's it, I know it is! I snapped at him last night, and we haven't been on the best of terms… and if Sheldon noticed, he would have gone after him himself… he likes to do things on his own… Oh Colonel Sanders butcher me! It's all my fault! I've got to go looking for him, and Sheldon too!"

"Speaking of looking for people, has anyone found Roy?" asked Orson. "I haven't seen him all day, either."

"Oh honey mustard, he's probably run off too!" cried Joanna, rapidly loosing what little self control she had. "I blew him off last night, and he probably…" She suddenly grabbed Orson by the shoulders. "I won't come back until I've found all three of them, I promise."

"Well, okay, but if you've found Booker and Sheldon, you can bring them back… I mean, we've got a rooster here in the meantime…" Orson began.

"Oh, Buck?" Joanna snorted. "Trust me, you're going to want to get rid of that guy as soon as possible."

"Like, I thought you were succumbing to his mighty allure," said Bo thoughtfully.

"I know," muttered Joanna, "and it was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done. Once he tires of you he just practically tosses you aside and walks off… I mean, Roy never did that to _any _of us hens! And he spoke of the other hens in offensive terms to me when he had me to himself, and I just know he was doing that with everyone else too… I can't believe I feel for him." Joanna looked completely enraged with herself. "And trust me, when I come back here with Roy, you're going to be welcoming him with open arms. It won't take you long to discover him like I did. Not long at all."

"Well…" Despite everything he had heard—and somewhat even seen—about this newcomer, Orson was still trying to view him in at least a neutral light, although that was getting harder and harder by the second. "I hope you find them, Joanna. I'd help you, I truly would, but we've got more chores than ever around here—"

"Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it, but I'll find them on my own, trust me," said Joanna, courteously but firmly. "Besides, it's my fault they're gone." With that, she turned around and ran back to the coup for some final preparations.

"Like, this isn't boding well, man," said Bo in that lazy drawl of his.

"No… I have to agree, this isn't boding well at all," said Orson.

O.o.O

"I'm leaving and I don't know when I'll be back," said Joanna to her eight remaining children. "I have strong reason to believe that Booker ran away and that Sheldon went after him—"

"We already figured that out," interrupted Tonya. "Well, at least _I _did." She shot a triumphant grin at Logan.

"Don't interrupt, Tonya," said Joanna distractedly. "Now, listen to me. While I'm gone, you're in charge, Tonya, do you hear me! Make sure you and your siblings get to bed at a decent hour, and—"

"—be good, yes, we will, mother," said Tonya.

"What did I tell you about interrupting?" sighed Joanna. "Alright, be good, and hopefully I'll be back soon." She gave all of her children swift hugs and then hurried out into the dark night, after her two wayward chicks.

"Things couldn't have worked out better for me," said Tonya, smiling almost maliciously.

"What do you mean by that?" cried Alison. "Our brothers are out in the dangerous world, and you think it's good… why?"

"I have total freedom in going after Buck," said Tonya. "Without Mom to scold me, Buck's going to get the Tonya Treatment like no one else ever has before."

All of her siblings took a step back, in both admiration and fear of their sister.

O.o.O

(AN: Well, there we go… like I said at the beginning of the chapter, I don't know when I'll be able to update next, but I'll be trying my utmost to be getting up new chapters as soon as I can. So keep your eyes peeled, thanks for the reviews, and see you at chapter six!)


	6. Opening a Can of Worms

(AN: Hooray for DVDs! When my dad and brother came to visit me, we went shopping in Omaha and I bought Garfield and Friends Volume 4 on DVD. Talk about a whole new source for inspiration! Although I've had other things fighting for my time—namely homework—I simply can't put this off anymore. So here's chapter 6! Thanks again so much for the nice reviews.)

O.o.O

The next day, Orson had called a meeting… but only three people showed up.

"Bo, Lanolin, and Wade…" he counted to himself. "Plus me is four. Aren't there usually seven of us?"

"Like, they've all beaten a hasty retreat, remember?" said Bo.

"Oh… right." Orson's face fell. It had only been one day, but things without Roy, Booker, and Sheldon were already painfully different.

"What did you call the meeting for, pray tell?" Wade asked.

Orson cleared his throat. "Well, it's kind of a touchy subject… but to discuss the new rooster Buck."

No sooner had the words left his mouth when Wade gave a shriek of terror and Lanolin uttered a loud curse and made a very offensive finger gesture.

"Lanolin!" cried Orson, aghast.

"What's there to discuss?" Lanolin cried. "We all know he's a pig-headed jerk."

"I take offense at that," snapped Orson.

"Oops, sorry," said Lanolin, blushing a little. "But you know what I mean, right?"

"We can't be that quick to judge him," Orson said, trying unsuccessfully to calm Lanolin down. "This is only his third day here!"

"Look, Orson," Lanolin began, "you can't be so thick that—"

Wade suddenly slapped his wing over Lanolin's mouth. "Let me handle this," he said calmly. He turned to Orson, kept his calm face for about five seconds, and then snapped. "_HE'S GOING TO TURN THIS ENTIRE FARM INTO ZOMBIES AND NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP HIM! _May I flee in panic and terror now?"

"I'd rather you not…" said Orson.

"Okay then," said Wade agreeably, "I'll just flee in terror and panic then. _HELP! GET THIS MAD ROOSTER OFF OF OUR FARM! DO SOMETHING WHILST I HIDE IN A SAFE AND SECURE PLACE! HEEEEEELP!"_

He ran off into the distance screaming.

"I rest my case," said Lanolin smugly.

"Like, sure he agrees with you and all, sis, but Wade acts that way over everything," pointed out Bo.

"Look," snapped Lanolin at her brother, "are you trying to support this ego-trip, or do you want him off the farm like the rest of us do?"

"I would like to hear your opinion on the matter, Bo," said Orson. Sometimes Bo was a little off the wall, but he usually had something worthwhile to say, no matter how many "likes" were thrown in.

"Well, dude, when Ducko said something about the zombies or whatever, I think he's right, you know, at least with those hens. Like, if he told them to roast us over an open fire, I think they would, man."

"Those are the hens, though," said Orson, frantically trying to cast out some of the negativity. "How could he have that effect on us? We're not chickens, and we're not females… except for you, Lanolin, and I know how much you hate him."

"But have you seen what he does with Wade?" Lanolin said. "Wade's TERRIFIED of this guy, and not in just your typical Wade way, either. I've never seen him like this before. You've got to admit that his reactions are pretty severe, even for Wade!"

"Well…" Orson hesitated.

"Won't you wake up and smell the magnolias?" Lanolin finally snapped. "This guy is bad news, and we need him out of here right now!"

"But we can't!" Orson finally cried. "Not until Roy comes back! We need a rooster around here!"

Lanolin threw an upset undercut punch in the air. "Well, we'd better hope that Jeanie or whatever her name was finds him soon."

"Joanna," corrected Orson. "And I don't know how soon she will. She's more concerned with finding Booker and Sheldon."

"But, dude, she did say that she'd try to find Roy too," reminded Bo. "She said we'd be sick of him before too long."

"And boy, was she right," muttered Lanolin.

Orson sighed in resignation. "Maybe you're right," he said jadedly. "Maybe he is an evil dictator, or whatever it is. But you understand that I can't get rid of him until Roy comes back. We _need _a rooster around here."

"Then we should look for Roy too!" cried Lanolin. "Spread out, cover all the bases—"

"That would be a disaster," interrupted Orson. "Who knows, Joanna might have already found him, and the rest of us would all be running around trying to find him, when there's so much work to be done here… it's nearly harvest time!"

He put his arms on Lanolin's shoulders, nearly comfortingly. "You've never really met Joanna, but I have, and I know she won't come back till she finds all three of them."

"Like, besides," said Bo, staring at the chicken coup, "the remaining chicks seem to be handling things fine by themselves."

Orson and Lanolin turned their heads and gawked at what they saw. Buck had tore out of the coup, his tail feathers on fire.

"Why you little—!" he roared.

"Don't think I'm finished with you!" yelled a chick, from a group of about eight who were all laughing heartily. "The Tonya Treatment has only just begun!"

"I like her," said Lanolin. "She'll drive this guy out before long."

"And then we won't have a rooster," sighed Orson.

"Like, one of us had better be practicing their 'cock-a-doodle-doo'," laughed Bo.

O.o.O

Booker had no clue of his sister's current merriment, of his friends' worry over the new rooster, of the fact that his brother had gone out after him, or even of his mother's panic at his disappearance.

All he knew was that he had _no _clue of where he was, and that he was hungry.

"I wonder if there's any worms around here…" he mused to himself. Hmph. Well, even if there were, it wasn't like he'd ever caught one before in his entire life.

Every bit of chicken instinct in him perked up, listening and feeling the ground underneath his feet for worms. It wasn't long before he felt a subtle movement underneath him.

He immediately assumed his "hunter in pursuit of prey" pose and froze, biding his time before he struck. He could feel the worm moving closer and closer to him… now was the time to act… he leaned over, preparing to strike, and then—

Something dark and furry suddenly shot out of the ground, causing Booker to scream and fall backwards.

"Oh, sorry! Didn't mean to scare you."

Booker sat up, gasped for breath, and stared at the newcomer, who had his worm in his mouth, slurping it down like a piece of spaghetti. It was a mole.

"Hey!" cried Booker indignantly. "I wanted that worm!"

"Are you hungry?" the mole asked.

Booker nodded.

And suddenly, the mole shot back in the ground again. A second later he was back on the surface, another worm in his mouth.

"All yours," he said, his voice muffled because of the worm.

Booker grabbed it and slurped it down. He could almost feel a ray of sunshine glowing down on him—he had only eaten a worm once before, when his mother had caught one and let him have a taste. That one taste had been the spark of an obsession to get another… and now that obsession was complete.

"I'd almost forgotten how good they tasted!" said Booker, with a dreamy smile.

"So, what's a kid like you doing off on your own?" the mole asked.

"I'm running away, that's what," snapped Booker.

"Hmm, running away," said the mole thoughtfully. "From whom or what, might I ask?"

"Everything!" cried Booker. "My parents, my sister, everyone who treats me like a stupid little kid!"

"Hmm, yes, I see," said the mole. "Well, you are free to stay with me as long as you want. All the worms you can eat."

Booker brightened. "Thanks!" he cried.

The mole offered his small, folded paw. "My name is Kiral. What's yours?"

"Booker," said the chick, taking Kiral by the hand and shaking it.

"Well, Booker, do you want to come down to my hole and make yourself at home?" asked Kiral.

Booker shrugged. "Sure."

"Well, come on down! You're the next contestant on—"

A snap of a twig interrupted Kiral. He and Booker turned around, only to see—

"Roy!" cried Booker. "What are you doing here?"

"What am _I _doing here?" cried Roy, indignant. "What are you doing here?"

"Stop following me!" cried Booker. "I don't care what you say to me, I ran away and I'm not coming back!"

"Whoa, stop and rewind!" yelled Roy, throwing his wings out to silence Booker. "I had no clue you ran away. Because that's what _I'm _doing."

"You're running away?" asked Booker, blinking. "But why?"

"Because everyone likes that pretty boy Buffy Bucky better than me," said Roy in a dramatic sad tone of voice.

Kiral smiled at Roy. "Well, I just let your little friend Booker stay with me as long as he chose to. You can too!"

"I don't want to stay with him!" cried Booker, pointing an accusing wing at Roy. "He's one of the people I ran away from in the first place!"

"Hold it, pip-squeak. What did I ever do to you?"

"You… well, you…"

"I think maybe you two need some rekindling," said Kiral genially. "You two should stay together. It would be better for both of you."

"I never said I had any problems sharing lodgings with you," said Roy with a shrug. "We're nothing but two poor, destitute runaways, brought together by fate and an overly friendly mole."

"Would you quit with the fancy talk?" cried Booker.

"I'll stay, and you will too, Booker," said Roy authoritatively. "This mole guy can help us eat all the worms we'd ever want!"

Booker pouted. "Oh, fine!" he finally conceded.

O.o.O

Sheldon had, unfortunately, chosen a different route than his brother had, and was by now miles away from both the farm and Booker.

"This is hopeless," he mumbled to himself, sitting down to think. Booker could have gone anywhere, and all Sheldon was doing was walking around looking for a fed up chick! There could be millions of those, as far as he knew. Especially where he was now—another farm.

"Alright Mom!" a child's voice rang out. Sheldon immediately stuck his legs in his shell, not wishing to be seen.

But he still _could _see through his shell, and what he saw startled him immensely—the child leaned down to stare at him. "Hmm, another egg. I must have missed one." He picked Sheldon up.

Sheldon was panicked. _"I'm not an egg!" _he wanted to yell, but if he did, the kid would surely drop him and crack his shell. But where was the kid going to put him? What if he stuck him in a carton of eggs… to be eaten!

"Billy, could you check the hens to see if they've laid any more eggs?" a faint female voice called from the house. "I'm an egg short for your birthday cake."

"I've got one right here, Mommy!" cried the boy, running into the house.

Now Sheldon was _twice _as panicked.

Billy handed Sheldon to his mother. "Thanks, Billy," said the woman, taking Sheldon, holding him over the bowl, and…

Sheldon had to do _something! _Anything!

But it was too late.

With a sound hit, the woman cracked Sheldon's shell and Sheldon—the real, chick Sheldon—fell into a very mushy bowl.

Both Billy and his mother screamed.

O.o.O

(AN: Heh, I think I've broken an unwritten (or maybe even written) rule of Garfield and Friends—Sheldon can never hatch. But hey, it's not like he hatched intentionally. Poor Sheldon! And poor you, because I just left you at a cliffhanger. I'll see you next chapter!)


	7. Mother Knows Best

(AN: CURSE YOU, WRITER'S BLOCK! YOU ARE THE BANE OF MY EXISTANCE!

Writer's block sucks. I didn't have it on this story—okay, I kind of did. But I also had it on my two other stories that I'm working on now, and on my story, and on a story I'm writing for purely my own enjoyment, and on two things for my creative writing class, and for two essays I have for different classes.

I'm worried I'm losing my writing touch… but if there's one thing I _don't _do, that's leave a story unfinished. I'll get those final chapters up, crummy as they may be! Of course, you guys are lucky—this is the story that's _easiest _for me to write right now. Wheee for humorous stories! Here's chapter seven—thanks again for the reviews!)

O.o.O

The first thing that hit Sheldon was how clear everything sounded.

Many people—most notably his mother—had heaped all the benefits of hatching onto his stubborn ears, the most profound ones being how much clearer his senses would be. Sheldon had protested that one; he could see and hear perfectly fine. But no, Joanna had been adamant on that point—"You only think you do because you don't know any better!"

Sheldon had shrugged that one off, but now, as he leapt out of the mixing bowl, seeing the yellow yolks so brightly that they almost blinded him, and hearing with shocking clarity the screams of Billy and his mother, in the back of his mind, he conceded that his mother had been right.

"BILLY!" shrieked the mother. Sheldon clutched his wings over his ears. "There's a CHICKEN in this egg! Where did you FIND this egg? We don't have any roosters on this farm! How could—Catch it Billy, catch it!"

For Sheldon had decided not to just hang around and listen to the woman try to decide exactly where he had come from. He was hauling tail feathers outta there!

"Get it Billy! It's getting away!"

Sheldon tore out the door, with a confused and frightened little boy coming up not-too-fast on his heels.

"He's getting away, Mommy!" cried the boy, as Sheldon darted into the unmowed grass.

And then he stopped and stood completely still. The kid was pretty young, and maybe, when he didn't see the grass move, he would assume that Sheldon was gone.

And sure enough…

"He's gone, Mommy!" cried Billy to his mother.

"Oh well… but I wonder where that egg came from? Well, get me another egg then, but make sure you pull it out from underneath one of our chickens!"

Sheldon breathed a sigh of relief, and, once he heard Billy leave, ran as fast as he could away from the house, away from the horror, away from his shell…

His _shell! _

With his right wing, he brushed off a tiny piece of shell that was still clinging to his left wing and inspected it.

"Wow…" he breathed to himself. "I actually… _hatched."_

Yeah, he hatched alright. And he'd never felt so vulnerable in his life! Anyone could see him now and harm him… this was why he had never intended on leaving the safety of his shell!

His eyes darted around in total panic as he desperately tried to keep himself under control, as he could feel a huge wave of panic start to sweep through his insides. "It's not that big of deal," he muttered to himself. "Booker's done it. Tonya's done it. All of my siblings have. In fact, just about every other chicken on earth has."

His run was reborn when the panic became too great to control. He ran and ran and ran—and very nearly fell in a puddle.

Stopping himself just in time, Sheldon balanced precariously on his legs, successfully but with great effort avoiding the plunge. However, he nearly lost his balance again when he saw his reflection in the puddle.

He was… a _freak!_

"Mom was right!" cried Sheldon in horror, staring at his repulsive reflection in disbelief. "My growth _was _stunted!"

His entire body—save his very normal looking legs—was almost dwarfish and compact. It probably wouldn't have been noticeable if it hadn't been for those feet—but they had grown outside of the shell at a normal rate, and thus made him look like his legs were about three sizes too big!

"Well… maybe my growth will pick now that I've—perish the thought—hatched," mused Sheldon to himself, watching with wonder his reflection and the way his beak moved as he talked. He had never seen himself—the real Sheldon, not the shell he hid behind—at all before, and while the sight was at first ghastly and almost comical (he could hear Tonya's insane laughter already), it was a very moving experience to finally see himself for the first time.

He turned away from his reflection and looked at the scenery around him and gasped. Never, ever had he imagined how beautiful things were! True, he hadn't been blind, even inside his shell. He _could _see. A little. But… yes, he had to admit, his mother was right, more often than he gave her credit for. He hadn't known how much more there was out there. How can you even begin to imagine such wonders like this when you've spent your whole life in a self-induced exile?

The sun was beginning to set. The sky was streaked with gentle brushes of red and gold, and it was reflecting off of the puddle he had nearly tumbled in to, as well as off of a small pond nearby, and the lilly pads on the pond, turning that whole body of water into a sparkling of blue and green against a yellowish-red sky.

It was beautiful.

Funny how those papers he had read only mentioned the _bad _things about the world, Sheldon reflected to himself. It seemed to him that these good things, while certainly not eliminating the bad, surely seemed to make the bad more bearable.

And he wasn't even really _listening _either… oh, how clear the wind blowing through the grass sounded! He had never heard that before. Nor had he heard the soft sound of a leaf settling to the ground, nor the distant cries of someone yelling, "Booker! Booker, is that you?"

Wait a minute…

Before Sheldon could contemplate that, he found himself swept off the ground in a crushing hug from his hysterical mother. "Booker, thank God I found you! You could have been lost, or hurt, or Lord forbid even killed—"

"Mom! I'm not Booker! It's me, Sheldon!"

Joanna dropped her son in astonishment.

"…Sheldon? _Sheldon?_" She looked him over quickly. "My God! It _is _you, Sheldon! You finally hatched!"

"Not voluntarily," Sheldon grumbled.

"Well? What happened?" Joanna asked, peering at him.

"Well… this little kid picked me up and gave me to his mom, and she was baking a cake or something, and…"

"She cracked you open?"

"Yeah, and—"

Sheldon was unable to get another word out, however. Joanna had collapsed on the ground, shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

"It's not funny!" cried Sheldon. "I've never been so scared in my life!"

Joanna, nearly paralyzed with merriment, had tears rolling down her face. "Oh my… ha ha!... my dear Lord… she thought—hee hee!—she thought you were for—" she snorted "—_eating?"_

"Mom! I was _terrified!_"

Joanna finally managed to get up off the ground, wiping away the last tears from her face. "Of course, Sheldon… I have to admit, given the circumstances, I would have been too." She shot him a stern glance. "But it serves you right for the complete sense of _panic _you and your brother had me in! Why did you two run away?"

"I went out looking for Booker, just like you!" cried Sheldon.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You probably would have tried to stop me…"

"And with good reason. You're just a chick, Sheldon! The world out here is dangerous—and I thought that you, more than anyone else, knew that! I mean, come on, you never even hatched!"

"Well, I… you couldn't expect me to just say back at the coup! I had to go find him! He's my best friend!"

Joanna sighed. "I know, Sheldon. I know." She scooped him up and hugged him again, albeit more gently. "I know how close you two are. But just understand… I've been worried ever since I realized that both of you were gone."

Sheldon shrugged. "Well, don't blame me. Booker's the one who started this all."

"Yes, that little rascal. You haven't found him yet, I'm assuming?"

"Nope."

"I hope he's okay," Joanna murmured. "And I hope we can find Roy too… he ran away too, you know."

"He did?" Sheldon asked.

His mother sighed again. "Yes, he sure did. We had three runaways in one day. Those other friends of yours seemed worried about all three of you too."

Sheldon could feel himself blush in slight shame. His mother smiled at him.

"It's so nice to finally see my own son's face," she said affectionately.

Sheldon grinned, almost bigger knowing that his facial expression was finally able to be seen. "Yeah, well, it's nice to see my _own _face."

Booker was a bit off the mark, Sheldon decided. Not only was their mom, apparently, right about most things, but she was also pretty nice.

O.o.O

Meanwhile, back on the farm…

Buck stretched out in a relaxed pose on his lawn chair, soaking up the last rays of light from the setting sun. He took a contented drink from his drink—and then spit it out in disgust.

The expected sound of aggravating chicks laughing soon followed.

"You damned kids!" he roared, throwing the glass in the direction from where the laughing seemed to be coming from. It hit the ground and shattered… and, from behind various bushes, eight chicks leapt out of harm's way.

"Don't you little beasts have anything _better_ to do?" he snarled at them.

"Well, we've already done our chores," said the girl that he had threatened yesterday, the ringleader of the bunch, the one they called "Tonya". "But I see you haven't yet, you swine. Too busy with your other work, huh?"

"You little brats should respect your elders!" snapped Buck. "And that included NOT tampering with their drinks? What exactly did you put in that, anyway?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" taunted Tonya. "And respect our elders? You're one to talk. You don't even respect your peers!"

Buck stormed up to the insolent little wench-in-training and grabbed her roughly by the neck again.

_I'm going to have permanent scars on my neck, _Tonya thought to herself as she experienced a sense of deja-vu from yesterday.

"Tonya!" gasped all of her siblings, finally seeing the abuse that their sister had endured yesterday.

"I'm going to give you and your snot-nosed siblings ten seconds to get out of here."

Tonya wasn't about to be daunted. "What if it takes us eleven?"

"Then you won't _live _to see twelve."

The other seven chicks gasped. Tonya, however, just grunted dismissively.

"Ooh, siblings, look at the tough guy. I think I will stick around, just to see what he does."

"You idiot," sneered Buck. "Don't you realize that I could pull you in half right now?"

"Then why don't you?" Tonya shot back.

Buck could sense an attack on his abilities whenever he was faced with one. "Listen, girly, I could rip apart a rooster my own size like he was a ragdoll. A little female chick like you is child's play."

Tonya had noticed the slight emphasis he put on the word "female". "Oh. So you're sexist, too. Somehow I'm not surprised."

Buck suddenly and rather rudely dropped Tonya on the ground. Tonya rubbed her bottom in pain as Orson walked up.

"Uh… what's going on here?" Orson asked. He had _thought _he saw Buck nearly strangle the chick, but surely his eyes were deceiving him… sure, so Buck wasn't the nicest guy around. But downright violent?

"Nothing, nothing," said Buck dismissively. "I was just spending some _quality bonding time _with the chicks here."

"And that was quality, alright," snapped Tonya. She glared at Buck. "We'll be back tomorrow. Same old, same old. I bet you're getting tired of this, aren't you?"

Buck started to glare, but remembering Orson's presence, he very painfully forced his mouth into a fake smile… although his eyes were still burning with loathing of that insolent little hen as she led her siblings back to the coup.

Orson, not knowing _what _to make of that scene, decided to just ignore it. "Um, Buck, you haven't done your chores for the day yet, and it's almost nighttime—"

"Oh my!" Buck cried with feigned surprise. "I had almost forgotten. Thanks for reminding me, Owen! I'll get on them right away."

"Actually, my name's Orson—"

Buck didn't stay to listen, however. He picked up his lawn chair and strode off to the rooster's roost.

Orson shrugged. "Well, at least he's actually willing to _do _his chores. Maybe there's hope for him after all."

O.o.O

"DUCK! Get in here, NOW!"

After his holler, Buck glanced at his watch. "One, two…" he counted.

Just as he said the word "three", Wade ran in clumsily, nearly tripping on his own feet. "Y-yes, master, your grace, your—"

"Enough, enough." Buck waved his wing dismissively. "Have you done your chores for today, duck?"

"Oh yeah," nodded Wade, "I harvested the vegetable garden and started working on organizing the supply shed. …Why do you asketh?"

"Wonderful, wonderful! That gives you all the time in the world to do _mine!"_

Wade hesitated. "But, uh, sir, uh…" His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "The chores on our farm are equally divided so each member has the same responsibility—"

Buck interrupted Wade by grabbing him by the throat and holding him up in the air, just as he had done with Tonya. "Do them. Now."

Wade's eyes had never gone so wide, nor his pupils so dilated. "Y-y-yes, master!" he gasped.

Buck dropped Wade roughly to the ground and handed him a sheet of paper with three chores listed on it. "Here. And you'd better do them _right._"

Wade was too terrified to even speak by this time. He merely nodded dumbly and, still gasping for breath, took the list.

"Oh, and duck, I'll be with the hens tonight, so please. Don't disturb me." With that, the arrogant rooster spun around and strode out of the building, leaving the petrified duck on the ground, unable to do anything but shake uncontrollably.

O.o.O

(AN: Wow, I'm really starting to _hate _Buck! And he's going to do even worse things to Wade pretty soon—aaw, poor Wade! He and Roy are my favorite characters from this segment of the show. :) Anyway, I again apologize for the wait, but like I said earlier, get used to it—I'm not able to write very often, and I've got two other stories I have to write too. But I most certainly will not give up on this story—I'm loving it too much! I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as I am. See you next chapter!)


	8. A Little Quiet, Please?

(AN: I'm sooooo sorry for such a long wait! I've been busy, had writer's block, went on vacation for a week in Jamaica… yeah, you know, you know. And wow! Six reviews for chapter seven! Although one of them didn't have the best spelling or grammar, or intentions for that matter… heh. Flames make me laugh my butt off. So, thanks Lou! And thanks to my two regular reviewers and the three new (or somewhat new) faces! I hope I see you all again after this chapter! And… drumroll please… here it is!)

O.o.O

Booker was a stubborn little cuss, to be sure. Everyone knew it, even Booker, but Booker wouldn't admit it in a million years. Which, in fact, was even _more _proof of his stubbornness.

But night had fallen and, although curled up in the safety of Kiral the mole's underground burrow, Booker still felt a hollow feeling in his chest. He missed the farm. He missed his friends. He missed his siblings.

He missed Mom.

Yes, he missed the one person who he had run away from, the one person who sent him over the edge… his mom! Here he was, the equivalent of a human teenager—even an older teenager, really—who, by all accounts, should be getting ready to strike out on a new farm, be the head rooster—funny, he hadn't known about his upcoming rooster duties until a few days ago, but everything seemed to make perfect sense to him now. And besides all that, he had never been close to his mother. Never!

"Well, Booker, you know what they say," he mumbled to himself. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Maybe he could go home tomor—no! A thousand times no! He wasn't about to admit to Mom and Tonya and Sheldon and everyone else that he made a mistake. No, no, no! He wasn't going to come crawling back home crying and confessing that he was—gasp—wrong.

Darn it. And now he couldn't sleep.

His eyes wandered over to where Kiral was sleeping—soundly. Booker sighed. He was jealous. He had had a _very _long and tiring day, and the only thing he wanted now was to sleep like that.

Feeling irritated, Booker turned his attention to Roy, in another "corner" of the hole.

Roy looked to be asleep, but in a very fidgety way. Booker felt himself smirk. At least he wasn't the only one having a restless night. Of course, Roy's none-too-peaceful slumber could just be the product of a bad dream, nothing more. But, Booker reminded himself, bad dreams could often be the result of some real-life anxieties, especially in clichéd filled fanfics like the one they were in. He would probably start murmuring things in his sleep any minute now.

And sure enough…

"Joanna…" Roy murmured in his sleep, in a sort of pained way.

Booker had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

How perfect was that? Roy was in love with his mom! …Well, when you think of it as his _dad _was in love with his mom, it wasn't too strange. But Booker was still having trouble seeing Roy as a father figure—and he probably always would. And even if he did, chickens were never the most… well, romantic, maybe. But the most committed farm animals? Hardly. Lust was there, but love? It was probably a foreign concept to most.

That had probably been what had finally driven Roy of the farm, Booker realized. When Joanna had started ignoring him in favor of Buck, Roy thought he had no reason to stay! It made perfect sense, the more Booker thought about it. Roy tried—sort of—to not play favorites with the hens, but it was always obvious that Joanna was his favorite. The two had so much in common, it was hard to imagine them with anyone else. Smart chickens belong with their own kind—however few there might be. In fact, that was even _more _of a reason for them to stick together.

Booker sighed and slipped over to his side. This was all very interesting philosophical stuff, but 1:00 AM or whatever time it was probably wasn't the best time to be pondering it. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind sufficiently so he could at least get a few hours of sleep.

But it's hard to sleep when some _inconsiderate _people outside the hole are talking!

Huh?

Booker sat up and rubbed his eyes and ears. Yes, there _were _voices out there. Who on earth would be out there—in the middle of the night?

"That's strange," murmured Kiral. Booker spun around in surprise—apparently, the noises had awakened their mole friend. "I guess I'd better go see who they are."

Roy sat up as well, rubbing his eyes, red from lack of sleep. "Who in their right mind would be conversing outside of a mole's hole at this time of night?"

"Exactly what I was wondering," muttered Booker.

O.o.O

"Mom… we're _not _going to find them today… actually, I'm guessing it's past midnight, so it's the next day anyway… can we just sleep somewhere?"

Joanna threw up her wings in exasperation at Sheldon's ridiculous—at least to her way of thinking—question. "I can't rest until I find your brother, Sheldon! I simply can't! Sure, Roy can take care of himself, so I'm not as worried about him, but Booker's just a child! He can't survive out here on his own!"

"_We _won't survive either, if we keep wandering around strange places at night without any sleep," Sheldon reminded her, sounding unusually testy.

"Look, Sheldon," Joanna snapped, "if you were a parent, then you'd know exactly—"

"Excuse me?"

Joanna and Sheldon both spun around, their argument completely silenced. Kiral the mole gave them a friendly smile.

"Look, I'm sorry to break up your, uh, conversation, but my friends and I are trying to sleep." He blinked. "Oh jeez, you're chickens too?"

"What do you mean _too?" _Joanna asked.

"I've got two chickens lodging with me as we speak! A dejected rooster and an angry little chick who holds grudges!"

Sheldon slapped a wing against his head. "You've got to be kidding me."

Joanna made the connection instantly as well. "Booker and Roy are down there? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I'm serious, that's their names… why, do you know them?" Kiral asked innocently.

The good mole was rudely interrupted when Joanna, in all of her motherly fury, pushed Kiral roughly to the side and stuck her head down the hole. "Booker! Booker! Are you in there?"

And down in the hole, both Booker's and Roy's eyes grew wide as their pupils dilated.

"Oh crap, it's Mom," grumbled Booker.

"Oh crap, it's Joanna," said Roy uncomfortably, apparently at a loss as to whatever it was he could say to her.

Booker gulped. "I guess we'd better come out, otherwise she'll be coming in," he said to Roy.

"Yes, we might as well get my embarrassing reunion with her over with," Roy sighed.

And so, reluctantly, the two chickens made their way out of the burrow to face Joanna…

…but their attention upon entering the night air wasn't on her. It was on Sheldon.

"Who the heck are _you?" _they both asked in unison.

"Take a wild guess," mumbled Sheldon, narrowing his eyes.

And then, again in unison, they both realized.

"_**SHELDON?"**_

"You hatched!" cried Booker (Roy's jaw had dropped to the ground and rendered him unable to say anything else). "I can't believe you hatched! …Wow, you look really _weird!"_

"Don't rub it in," muttered Sheldon.

"What made you decide to do it?"

"Decide?" Sheldon cried out, getting, perhaps for the first time in his life (his life pre-hatched counted as well, of course) truly angry. "Decide? There was no decision about it! Some idiotic human thought I was an egg for eating and was going to bake a cake out of me! She cracked me open on her mixing bowl! I had no say in the matter whatsoever! And furthermore—"

"Whatever, whatever," Booker interrupted. "What are you doing out here, though? You didn't want to run away too, did you?"

"_No," _Joanna's voice rang out, answering for Sheldon as she glared at Booker, "your brother was worried about you and went out searching for you! If it hadn't been for you, he'd be back at the farm, safe and warm inside his shell—then again, I guess I am glad that he finally hatched—"

"Oh Mom," cried Booker in annoyance, "are you going to chide me agai—"

Booker suddenly found himself unable to say anything else, as his mother crushed him in a fierce hug.

"You little scoundrel!" Joanna sobbed into Booker's feathers. "You had me worried sick! Don't you _ever _run off like that again, do you hear me? Oh, Booker—my dear little son!"

Booker struggled to breathe. "Uh, Mom—I've never given you cause to care about me—"

"It doesn't matter," said Joanna, loosening her grip on Booker a small fraction. "I'm your mother and I'll always love you."

Booker made no effort to hide his surprise.

Meanwhile, Sheldon picked up Roy's jaw and sent it rolling back up, like a curtain. "Yeah, yeah, I hatched. You can get over your shock now."

Roy rubbed his jaw—apparently, having it shoot down like that and hit the ground is a painful thing to experience. "I heard your explanation to Booker, but I still can't believe that you're actually out of your shell. And…" Roy unsuccessfully tried to hide a smirk. "…you look… you look like… _A FREAK!" _Unable to hold his laughter in any more, Roy fell to the ground in hysterical laughter, beating the dirt and letting tears of laughter freely fall down his face.

"I know, I know!" cried Sheldon. "So I should have hatched sooner. Mom was right. I look like a lop-sided dinosaur. There. Can we stop making fun of the mutant chick now?"

"Um…" Kiral finally spoke up again. "This is all sentimental and all, but I'm very tired, so I hope you all will excuse me if I exit stage left."

"I'm going too, I'm about to drop dead of exhaustion," Booker said.

"Me too!" said Sheldon.

"Says the munchkin," said Booker with a smirk.

"Come on, lay off…"

The two chicks jumped in the hole.

Kiral smiled at Roy and Joanna. "Are you two coming?"

Joanna smirked. "In a bit… I have a few questions I need to ask Roy here, first."

Roy blushed and tried to shrink a few inches.

"Okay… suit yourselves." Kiral smirked at Roy and did a neat little dive into his burrow.

Still gradually turning redder and redder, Roy half-laughed in an embarrassed manner and stepped back a few feet.

"What are you doing?" cried Joanna, completely nonplussed.

"Ahem, well…" Roy fumbled for words. "…I just don't want you to yell at me like you yelled at Booker…"

"I'm not going to yell," said Joanna, raising an eyebrow. "I'm going to ask. I know why Sheldon ran off, and I can almost understand why Booker did too. But why you? I thought you had more sense than that."

"Well… I… you…"

"I also thought you could actually speak in complete sentences."

"You like Buck better than me!" Roy finally blurted out.

He then mentally slapped himself. Wow. He couldn't have sounded more whiny if he tried. Nice way to win her back, huh, Roy?

"Oh, for the love of birdseed… No I don't."

"Could've fooled me."

"So I liked him at first—but then I heard him refer to all of hens as… as… I don't want to say it in a PG rated fic. He treats us like… like socks."

Roy blinked. "Socks?"

"Yes. Socks. He thought we were nice until we, in a sense, got dirty. Then he threw us away." Joanna shuddered. "I'm guessing by now all the other hens hate him too. I mean, even _they _can't be that stupid."

"I don't know… even _you _liked him at first."

"Not anymore! I was an idiot, a grade-A idiot! And… I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I guess I treated you like a sock as well, huh?"

"Yeah, sock… sure, whatever…"

They were quiet for a few moments.

"Well, I think I'll be going to sleep," Joanna finally said, and climbed down the hole.

"Uh, yeah… me too, I guess…"

Roy blinked.

Well. _That _was awkward.

O.o.O

(AN: Hmm, my mind can't take anymore typing for now. Sorry this chapter had no Tonya vs. Buck… next chapter, I promise! Whenever that will be. See you then!)


	9. Broken Wings

(AN: I actually planned on writing a chapter over Christmas break. Fat chance of that, huh? You can all thank your lucky stars that my Christmas break ended so soon! Here's chapter nine, with some promised Tonya vs. Buck goodness for you.)

O.o.O

Night fell and morning came, just as it always does on the farm.

Buck pushed his way out of the henhouse (he had moved all the beds and made them into one big bed, while the hens so thoughtfully slept on the floor) and walked out into the cold morning air, sucking in the oxygen… oh yes, it was going to be a great day! He took a step forward and—

—pulled his foot back instantly. There, right outside the chicken coup, was a dirt-colored blanket stretched over what was undoubtedly a hole. He laughed rudely.

"Nice try, Tonya or whatever your filthy name is! You're going to have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over me!"

Buck threw his heavily-combed head back and laughed, taking a step to the side of the obvious trap laid out so clumsily by the stupid little hen.

"AAAAHHHH!"

Cursing wildly and loudly, Buck heaved himself up on his feet and stared up at the bear-pit trap that he _had _fallen in, laid just to the left of the first one. The trap was at least four feet deep—maybe not very deep to you, but to a chicken, it was more than twice his height.

The guilty party's yellow-feathered head poked down and grinned maliciously at Buck, still seething.

"Actually," said Tonya in a cheery voice, "I _did _get up early in the morning to lay these traps. Guess my hard work and early morning paid off, huh?"

Behind her, of course, was the approving giggles of her nasty little siblings.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT, YOU—"

"I know the author still wants to keep this PG, so I'll censor that word!" Tonya quickly said.

"—I'M WARNING YOU!"

"Aaaaww, go take a very long walk off a non-existent pier," said Tonya with a dismissive wave of her wing, turning around and leaving her foe still hollering profanities from his dungeon.

"That was a great one, Tawnie!" laughed Karley, clutching her sides from laughing so hard.

"One of my better efforts, I have to agree," said Tonya smugly.

"It's too bad Booker and Sheldon aren't here to see this," said Ryan with a sigh. "They would have enjoyed this."

"Yeah, even Booker, that stubborn little brat," Tonya had to agree.

Alexander lightly and fearfully tugged on Tonya's wing. "Tonya… don't you think you've tormented Buck enough now?"

"Are you kidding?" Tonya barked out. "If I kept this pace up for a hundred years he would still deserve more! Besides, it's a lot of fun, and Mom isn't here to tell me to knock it off."

"But…" Alexander, as usual, had to search for his words in between his hesitant stutters. "…but Buck s-said that… he'd rip you a-apart… and e-every time you do something to him, he gets m-madder and madder!"

"Pish-posh," said Tonya in a pish-poshy sort of way. "Have you counted how many times he's said that?"

"Fourteen, at last count," Julius piped in.

Tonya raised an eyebrow. "…Ooooo-_kay. _That was actually a rhetorical question, but it does prove my point. Buck has made that claim multiple times a day, and yet he has only acted on it twice."

"But—!" Alexander began.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Tonya interrupted. "And both times I totally and completely kept my cool, remember? You saw one of them."

"He _strangled _you!" Nicole reminded Tonya rather harshly.

"And I'm still okay, aren't I?"

"That's not everyone's opinion," Alison whispered to Logan. Logan twittered with laughter.

"Shh." Tonya flapped her wing across Logan's mouth, silencing her sister. "Do you hear that? It sounds like Buck's yelling 'duck' or something like that."

"Maybe someone's about to hit their head on a low branch and he's telling them to duck," Julius offered.

Tonya shook her head. "No way. Buck's not that considerate." She bit her beak in thought, and then remembered with a flash—"I know! He's calling for that poor duck that he terrorized that night he was partying in the coup!"

And sure enough…

"DUCK! Get me out of this hole!"

Wade had scrambled to the hole as soon as he heard Buck's vengeful rage, but as he looked down the hole, he shook even more with fear.

"Uh, your worship, your grace, your royal highness of evilness—"

"STUFF IT!"

Wade's voice was now hardly more than a whisper. "—I don't know how to get you out!"

Buck snorted very rudely. "You moron, you lean down, extend your wing, and I jump and grab it!"

"Bu-but you're too heavy for me too—"

"LOWER YOUR WING, DUCK!"

"—hold," Wade finished meekly. Nervously balancing himself on the edge of the bear trap that Tonya had so meticulously dug in the wee hours of that morning, Wade every so carefully, inch by inch, began lowering himself down, but then a thought came to his panic-stricken mind—

Why help him at all?

Wade was terrified of disobeying him, to be sure, but… jeez, he was four feet under! What could he possibly do to him?

"What are you waiting for?" snarled Buck.

"You know, actually, I don't think I _will _help you out of there!" said Wade in one of his characteristic, although sadly usually short-lived, spouts of bravery. "Ever since you've came here, all you've done is yelled at me, belittled me, and forced me to do all your work, completely throwing off the balance of the equal duties we all have here! But now that you're down there, there's no _possible _way you can hurt me, thus giving me no reason to fear you, thus I am blatantly disobeying your orders!" Wade took in a deep breath and, as confidently as he ever had before, looked Buck directly in the eyes, with a smug superiority etched on his feathery face.

Unfortunately, Buck knew Wade's random fears all too well. "But I can sing 'Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here' in the key of G flat while juggling water balloons."

Wade shrieked in fear. "You wouldn't!"

"I would!" hissed Buck.

Wade gulped in terror. "Alright," he murmured resignedly, "I'll do it."

Finding his balance again, Wade leaned himself as carefully as he could into the pit, holding on to the ground with one wing for balance.

"You're going to have to lean down further than that," snapped Buck.

"But I'll fall!"

"Hail, hail…"

"No, please!" begged Wade. "I can get lower…"

Now leaning as far down into the pit as he possibly could, Wade stretched his wing down to Buck, and…

Buck jumped up and grabbed Wade's outstretched wing. Scrambling madly, Wade managed to hoist Buck out of the pit and safely on terra firma, but he very nearly lost what little balance that he had. Flailing his wing out while grasping firmly onto the edge with the other, Wade probably would have regained his balance and even pulled himself out all by himself…

…if Buck hadn't, forcibly, deliberately, cruelly…

…pushed his savoir into the pit.

The hollow thud of his landing, the shark crack that sounded from his right wing when his body landed painfully on it, and the searing pain that shot through his wing, completely silenced Wade as painfully sat up and stared at his injury. It had finally happened… he had always feared it, but never experienced it, but now, that snapping sound, the way his wing was misshapen, and the way that it hurt to even _think _about moving it, eliminated all questions.

"I broke my wing!" Wade wailed helplessly.

Wade was, by nature, always an apprehensive (at best) and panic-stricken (at worst) creature, but rarely did he succumb to tears. But the fear of actually being injured—people could _die _from broken bones, if they punctured a vein or something, right?—added with the excruciating pain racing up and down his wing pushed him over the edge.

Through huge, gasping sobs, he cried, "It hurts and I'm gonna DIE!"

"Oh, knock it off, you big crybaby," scoffed Buck, brushing his wings off nonchalantly.

"Help me!" cried Wade.

"Help you?" repeated Buck. "I can't help you! I have chores to do! Chores that you're _**supposed **_to do for me! Like watering the crops… and the big bear pits…"

"What do you mean by that?" Wade asked innocently, blinking away tears.

Then he his head around, taking in his surroundings.

"_OH NO!" _he wailed. "You don't mean that! You _can't!"_

"Aaw, come on," said Buck with a horrid grin. "Ducks like water."

"Not me! I'm afraid of it! Besides, even if I wasn't, I can't swim with a broken wing! Where are you going? Come back! Please come back and get me out of here! If you do, I'll do anything—I'll even let you sing 'Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here' whilst juggling! Don't leave! Help! Assistance needed! Please, please don't leave me here to drown!"

Of course, Buck had been long gone before Wade even started his third sentence. Realizing this, Wade moaned loudly and very possibly would have curled up in a fetal position if his wing weren't so painfully useless. "Somebody, please help… ORSON!" he screeched.

By a wondrous stroke of good luck, Orson happened to be walking by the henhouse at that very moment. Hearing Wade's voice far more panicky and terrified than it had ever been before, he screeched to a halt in his tracks. "Wade! Is that you? Where are you?"

"Down here in this pit!" cried Wade, feeling a small wave of relief wash through him. "Please get me out! I'm in pain and I'm dying and I'm going to drown if you don't do something!"

Orson peered down at Wade's underground dungeon and gasped. "Wade! What happened to you? Bo, Lanolin, get over here—and bring a ladder! How did you get down there?"

Wade trembled, clearly not wishing to answer.

"Wade, what happened?" Orson pressed.

"Thou shouldst not asketh a dying duck so many questions," he replied without conviction.

"Dying? Wade, what are you talking about?"

"I broke my wing!" Wade sobbed. "I'm a goner, I'll be checking in to get my halo any minute now, and, oh, there was so much I wanted to do with my life!"

"You're not going to die of a broken wing, Wade," sighed Orson. "But where did this hole come from? Did you fall?"

"Uh… yeah, sure, let's go with that," said Wade uncertainly.

"Wade… tell me the truth!"

"Like, we're here with the ladder, man," said Bo, running up to the scene of the accident holding one end of a ladder, Lanolin holding the other. "What's the buzz, cuz?"

"Wade fell down this hole that came out of nowhere and broke his wing!" cried Orson.

The sheep dropped the ladder and ran to the side of the pit, looking down at the unfortunate duck. "Wade, you poor coward!" cried Lanolin, almost sounding sympathetic. (Probably as sympathetic as she could ever get.) "How did you _really _fall down here? I bet it has something to do with that rotten rooster Buck—"

"Actually, it did."

Orson, Bo, and Lanolin spun around in shock at Buck, who was holding a garden hose and feigning despair (although now even Orson was beginning to see through it). "When I woke up this morning I feel right in this pit that that terrible little chick Tonya set for me. Duck—I mean Wade—heroically pulled me to safety, but he unfortunately fell in himself. I immediately ran off to get this hose to fill up the hole and have him float up to safety—"

"Thank you," said Orson curtly, cutting the rooster off. "But we can handle it from here. Leave us alone." Orson had never been this severe with Buck before, but if Buck noticed it, he didn't comment. He merely shrugged, dropped the hose, and sauntered off.

"What a loathsome lying fiend!" Lanolin spat out as Bo climbed down the ladder to retrieve Wade. "He pushed you in, didn't he?"

"Uh, maybe… is he still here?" asked Wade, trembling in Bo's arms.

"Dude, man, there's reason to be afraid and all that, but you like need to start standing up for yourself," said Bo sensibly.

"Am I going to die now?" asked Wade in a pitifully small voice.

Orson sighed. "No, you're not. Bo, could you take Wade to the barn? And Lanolin, could you find the chick Tonya and bring her to the barn?"

"What about you, hog-boy?" asked Lanolin bitterly. "Are you finally going to give that rooster the boot?"

"I DON'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY!" screamed Orson, taking aback Bo, Lanolin, and Wade.

Taking a deep breath and re-collecting himself, Orson continued, "Uh, sorry about that. But really, I don't have the authority to take people off the farm! I know I used to, but the farmer didn't like that. I'll put in a word with him, however. But I'll warn you that it probably won't do any good. We need a rooster here, and unless Roy ever comes back, Buck's the only one we've got."

"I hope Joanna comes back with Roy real soon," mumbled Lanolin. "She was right, of course… all of us will be welcoming him back with open arms."

With that said, the animals went their separate ways—Bo with Wade to the barn, Orson to the farmhouse, and Lanolin inside the hen house.

O.o.O

(AN: I suppose that's a good stopping point, although I could go on and on with this chapter! It should be a crime to have this much fun writing a story. And a crime to hurt poor Wade. Poor, poor Wade! :(

Oh yes, and if you're curious… I drew some pictures of Joanna and Tonya that you might like to see. Just remove the –'s.

http:-/-/-www-.-deviantart-.-com-/-deviation-/-23077066-/- is of Joanna, and

http:-/-/-www-.-deviantart-.-com-/-deviation-/-27270732-/- is of Tonya, in both chicken and—gasp—human form!

Anyway, I'll see you next chapter—chapter ten! Wowza! (faints))


	10. Accidentally In Love

(AN: This chapter SHOULD have come sooner… but I got sidetracked, and I wound up going home for more weekends than I planned, rendering me unable to write. So… I apologize. But here's the next chapter, still earlier than most of the other chapters have been!

And hey, I actually have a neat title for the chapter that I came up with BEFORE I wrote it! The song "Accidentally in Love" by the Counting Crows seems to fit the chapter, so I thought I'd steal the chapter. As usual, I don't own anything that is well-known, famous, or popular, so please don't sue me.

Oh yeah, one more thing… you know, I thought that if one didn't like a story that they read, they wouldn't continue to read it. Common sense, right? And yet I got lucky and got the same guy to flame my story twice. The first time I was amused, but now I'm just confused. (Hey, that rhymed.) First of all, I'm a girl. A girl who doesn't know the meaning of the word "azz". (pulls out dictionary) Hmm, a-z-z… nope, not in there. Also, now correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this site is called fanfiction-dot-net. Fanfiction, noun: stories based on an existing work. If I'm going to write a story based on something else, it stands to reason that I'd use some of the characters from that work, right? Otherwise, I'd be on fictionpress-dot-net.

Whoops, sorry about that. (turns down level on sarcasm meter) There, I should be good now. ;p To those still reading and enjoying, thanks bunches, and here's chappy ten!)

O.o.O

The scenery was gorgeous—never had there been greener grass, waving lightly in the gentle breeze; never had there been a bluer sky, patched symmetrically with perfect clouds; never had there been more beautiful purple mountains, topped with snow, like frosting on a cupcake; absolutely perfect.

But it all paled in comparison to Joanna.

Roy watched her, dumbstruck. How could such a beautiful, perfect being exist in this imperfect world? Wasn't such a combination enough to cause the entire world to crumble, unable to handle so much perfection? The world didn't _deserve _Joanna; the GALAXY didn't. She transcended all of it.

It almost seemed as if she was in some other, perfect world, but, seeing Roy, she turned her head and smiled—a smile from her! Roy nearly fainted. What wonderful thing had he done to deserve that little slice of heaven?

Still smiling, she approached him, flowers popping out of the ground from each place where her foot was placed, birds fluttering all around her—songbirds, not chickens, although the songbirds looked drab compared to Joanna—all the while Roy was frozen in place, staring, staring, _she's coming here!..._

She was right in front of him! beams were shooting from the ground! too much to handle!

"Roy… I love you!" she said in her angelic voice.

The whole ground seemed to shift… huge heart shaped balloon-like things shot out… and Roy, finally able to move, took her in his wings, and—

"Breeeaaakfast!"

Roy's sleep-caked eyes cracked open, while his vision was madly trying to adjust—it was Kiral, holding a worm out in front of him. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. Here, have a worm!"

"frummumblegrumbleyoujustruinedagreatdreammumble," Roy inarticulated.

"Jeez, and I thought we kids were supposed to be the ones who slept in late," said Sheldon. He and Booker were wide awake and slurping down worms.

"You've got a lot to learn, shell-boy," said Booker. "Not only do they act like zombies, but they look like them too!"

"Oh, now I wouldn't say that!" said Kiral in a friendly tone.

"…ugh…where's my coffee?" Joanna muttered in a low growl, wiping crust from her eyes and trying to smooth out her rumpled feathers.

"Ugh!" cried Roy, who could now see relatively clearly. "You woke me up from a fantastic dream to see _that? _Quick, get me back to sleep! Y'know, Joey, there's a job opening at the haunted house—"

"Shut the hell up," snapped Joanna.

"Ooohh, burn!" Booker and Sheldon cried in unison.

"Ouch… there went my heart again," muttered Roy, quietly enough so that no one could hear him.

"Here, Mom, have a worm!" said Booker, handing his mother a worm. "Maybe that'll work as well as coffee."

"Doubt it, but I'm famished anyway," muttered Joanna, snatching the worm from her son's wings. She slurped it down in an instant.

"Have as many as you want," said Kiral with a smile. "I've got plenty."

"I'll take a few with me," said Joanna, grabbing a fistful. "It's a long way back to the farm."

"The farm?" cried Booker in disbelief.

"Yeah, it's that place where we live, remember?" joked Sheldon.

"I'm not going back there," said Booker fiercely. "I absolutely refuse. I'm going to live out on my own, catching worms and living my own life! I'm my own rooster now, Mom! You can't keep me tied down anymore!"

"You're not fully grown yet," said Joanna, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that she was stating what she found to be the ridiculously obvious. "And even if you were, you're the farmer's property."

"I won't go!" cried Booker. "I'm staying here and that's final!"

"_**You'll go, and you'll like it, buster!" **_Joanna roared.

"Yes, Master!" squeaked a taken-aback Booker.

"Sheldon, dear, you hold some too," said Joanna, handing a few worms to Sheldon. Sheldon obeyed without question—he always did, but it would be insane to argue with her today.

Joanna gave Booker a half dozen worms as well. "Don't eat them all at once," she reminded him. She then turned to Roy. "Well, Roy, are you coming with us or not?"

"After the way you yelled at me, he'd be idiotic not to—" Booker began.

"But I'm your mother. I can make you do whatever I want. But I'm not Roy's mother." Joanna smiled. "So, how about it?"

Roy flicked at his worm. "Oh, I think I'll just stay here… why on earth would I go back to the farm, I'm not wanted there!"

"Do you know how many times you've said that, but then it turns out that you're wrong?" Sheldon reminded him.

"Things are different now," said Roy with a sigh. "All those other times I ran away? You only wanted me back because you didn't have a rooster. But since Buffy Bucky's there, I'll bet no one's even noticed that I'm gone!"

"But—!" Joanna began.

"That's the way it goes with us roosters," Roy continued, not acknowledging Joanna's interruption. "It's a constant struggle for the top wrung of the ladder, and this is one battle that I lost. I have accepted it. But not all hope is lost!" he cried, dramatically throwing his wings around Booker and Sheldon. "You, my sons, can overthrow him once you're all grown up! The hierarchy that I worked so hard—okay, I didn't work at all for it—to maintain will be restored! Promise me that you'll fulfill my last request, boys!"

"Uh…" said Booker and Sheldon in unison.

"Oh, for the love of cornbread!" Joanna yanked Booker and Sheldon away. "Roy, trust me, if you come back with us you'll be welcomed back with open arms. By this time he'll have made an enemy out of everyone on the farm! By the time I left, even the sheep hated him!"

"You honestly cannot use Lanolin as an example here," said Roy defiantly. "She hates everything that has a pulse."

"I meant 'sheep' in the plural sense," said Joanna. "The male wasn't too fond of him either."

"And you've got to admit, if even Bo doesn't like someone, then that someone ain't that popular!" said Sheldon.

"You've got a point…" said Roy thoughtfully.

"Besides," said Booker, "for all we know, Tonya might have driven him off the farm by now anyway."

Joanna raised an eyebrow. "Tonya? What gives you that idea?"

"Come on!" cried Booker. "Tonya hated the guy the minute she laid eyes on him! And with you gone, she was left free to unleash all kind of terrors on him! You know Tonya!"

"That's right, I did leave her in charge," said Joanna, thinking to herself.

"You did WHAT?" cried Booker.

"Mom, you're insane!" yelled Sheldon.

"Well, Booker," said Joanna briskly, "I hope that you're right. Tonya's very good at dishing out punishment to those who deserve it—although it's usually to those who _don't _deserve it—"

"Mom!" Booker sounded aghast. "You're actually _encouraging _her… her… her Tonya-like behavior?"

"Why not?" said Joanna, shrugging. "It'll put that darn rooster in his place."

"Uh, question from the ignorant rooster in the room," said Roy, raising his wing. "What exactly _is _Tonya-like behavior?"

Sheldon started to laugh. "Oh, I don't know… maybe that time when she sprung that trap that had you hanging by your ankles for two hours, Booker… or that time she tricked you with that exploding worm… or when she discreetly stuck that 'Throw boulders at me' sign on your back?"

Growling, Booker added, "Or that time she tried to drill a hole in your shell?"

"Do you know how long it took me to patch that thing up?" cried Sheldon, sounding mortified.

"Well… I certainly see which of my chicks takes after dear old Dad," said Roy, smiling like the proud father he was. "She sounds like a chip off the old block for sure!"

"Unfortunately," muttered Booker.

"We don't have time for this." Joanna grabbed Booker and Sheldon by the wings again. "We need to get going now so we'll have as much daylight as possible. Are you coming or not, Roy?"

Roy sighed in desperation. "You guys try to make it sound so simple, but you don't understand—I'm shamed! I'm disgraced! Even if everyone back there _does _like me better, it doesn't matter! Buck won, and I'm the outcast—I can't go back."

Joanna sighed. "I'll never understand roosters. Well, come on, boys. Thanks for keeping us for the night, Kiral."

"It was my pleasure," said Kiral. "Pop in and see me if you're ever in the area again!"

"Sure thing. Bye, Roy, nice knowing you." Without even pausing to give Roy one last look, Joanna hauled Booker and Sheldon out of the mole hole.

Roy blinked.

"They sure seemed in a hurry," Kiral chuckled to himself. "Well, Roy, you're welcome to stay here as long as you want. Or do you plan on being a wandering vagabond?"

Roy stared at the ground, all his movements and thoughts frozen. "I plan… I plan…" He jumped up very suddenly and dramatically. "I plan on following Joanna to the ends of the earth!"

Kiral nodded. "Good plan."

O.o.O

"Honestly, I don't want to go back either if Buck's still there," Joanna said to her sons, as she escorted them in the direction that she hoped that the farm was. "The more I think of him, the more I want to punch something. But… we _are _the farmer's property…"

"So? People have run off from the farm all the time," said Booker.

"We need to set a good example," snipped Joanna.

"Since when have _you—" _Booker began, but the unmistakable sound of a lovesick rooster crawling out of a mole hole (you know what I'm talking about, right?) cut him off.

"Joanna… you _can't_… make me go back there!" Roy squawked, slowly crawling on his wings and knees to them, nearly foaming at the mouth.

"I'm not making you go back," said Joanna, perplexed. "I said you could stay. Why the change of mind?"

"Because!" cried Roy. "Because—" He glared at Booker and Sheldon. "Mind giving us some private time?"

Booker grinned. "Hey, Rooster-Man, anything you can say to our mom you can say to us."

"Yeah," said Sheldon, with a smile appearing on his tiny, distorted face. "If you send us away, we're going to start guessing that whatever you're telling her is something really—"

"JUST GET OUT OF HERE FOR FIVE MINUTES!" Roy screeched.

Unfortunately, Roy didn't have the authoritative effect on the chicks that Joanna had. Booker turned to Sheldon, still smirking. "D'ya think we should leave?"

Sheldon pondered this for a minute. "Yeah, I guess we'd better," he finally said sensibly. "I mean, who knows what… _gross _stuff they might do that we don't want to see. If you know what I mean."

"Good point, hadn't thought of that," said Booker, making a face. "Alright, _Dad, _we'll give you and Mom some alone time. C'mon, Shel."

The two chicks walked off, over a hill, hidden from view.

Joanna jerked her thumb to where the boys had disappeared. "You know, they're probably there, eavesdropping on us. Not that that bothers me… what exactly were you saying?"

Roy felt his throat contract. Mere moments ago he had been so eager to tell Joanna how he felt that he had nearly torn a ligament in his leg trying to get to her. But now… now he felt ashamed again. He felt unsure, stupid, vulnerable…

"I was saying," Roy finally sighed in defeat, "that wherever _you _go, _I _have to go too. I completely and totally took you for granted when I had you to myself, but when Buffy Bucky came and threatened that, I realized…" Roy felt his shoulders sag as he revealed himself completely to her. "I realized that I'm absolutely _batty _with love for you!"

Joanna couldn't help it—she chuckled. "We're _chickens, _Roy. Chicken's don't love! Well, maybe they love their birdseed—"

"I know that!" cried Roy. "But if you haven't noticed, I ain't your average chicken!" He rather suddenly took Joanna's wing and said, in a very serious, soft voice, "Neither are you."

For the first time that she could ever remember in her life, Joanna was completely speechless.

"So you see, Joey, I _can't _just stay here while you leave. Now, I'd rather nail my own toes to the ground than go back and face Buffy Bucky, but if you're going back there, than I am too!"

"You know…" Joanna began thoughtfully.

"Uh… maybe I would if you finished your thought…"

"Is going back to the farm really that tough for you?" Joanna suddenly said. "I mean, what about your friends? That pig, that duck, those sheep!"

"They hate me!" cried Roy. "And furthermore… yeah, I miss them," he admitted. "And I mean I miss _them,_not just playing pranks on them."

"They don't hate you," said Joanna. "They wanted me to find you too. And also… come on, is facing Buck really that bad? You need to learn to stand up for yourself—to tell you the truth, I thought you could already. And don't you dare feed me that 'he's won the battle' routine—if Tonya's had her way with him, he's probably been reduced by now to a lump of jelly. So—" Joanna smiled impishly— "so what say we head back and finish the job?"

"As long as you're there with me!" cried Roy, throwing his wings around Joanna in a passionate hug. Joanna blushed at first, but soon found herself returning the affectionate gesture.

"Hooray!" cried Booker and Sheldon, jumping out from behind the small rise in the ground where they had been eavesdropping, just as Joanna had predicted. "We get to teach a jerk a lesson!"

"You've done that often enough," muttered Roy, letting go of Joanna in a slightly embarrassed manner. "Although usually I'M the jerk who's getting the lesson taught."

Joanna grinned. "Well, there's no use hanging around here any longer. Let's go back to the farm!" She confidently started off.

"Uh, Jo? Isn't the farm _that _way?" asked Roy, pointing in the opposite direction.

Joanna shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Booker smacked his forehead. "Oh great…"

O.o.O

(AN: Not much to say here, just typing the ending author's note out of habit. :) Next chapter will be back on the farm, with Orson, Wade, Tonya, Bo, Lanolin, and, of course, that despicable Buck. So see you then, farm fans!)


	11. Would You Like Guilt With That?

(AN: You guys… I can't believe what I just now did. I finished watching all of my Garfield and Friends DVDs. All fifteen of them… I have now seen every. Single. Garfield and Friends episode. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself until Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Darkwing Duck come out on DVD later this year, ha ha!

But anyhoo, here's chapter eleven. Thanks for all the reviews—you guys rock.)

O.o.O

"…and I leave my dust collection to Orson, and my collection of all the feathers that have flown off my body during my moments of panic to Roy if he ever comes back, and Bo, you can have… actually, I don't collect anything else, everything else scares me."

"You're not going to die, man," said Bo comfortingly, piecing together a splint out of wood and yarn from the barn. "It's, like, just a simple fracture."

Wade's eyes grew wide as he watched Bo at work. "Are you medically qualified for this?"

"Like, don't worry, man!" said Bo. "I took a first aid class awhile ago. Now, just hold your wing still—"

"Oh no, stay away from me!" cried Wade, jumping up as well as he could, his good wing shielding himself.

"Dude, I'm your _friend,_" said Bo. "You can trust me."

"I trust you, but I don't trust your medical skills!" cried Wade. "Oh, what's the use?" He flopped down on the straw he had been laying on. "I'm going to perish as it is… please, Bo, be gentle and make it quick! I don't want to suffer any more than I am now!"

"Just hold your wing still, man," said Bo, steadying the splint. "Stop moving—it'll hurt if you're moving."

"It hurts when I hold it still, too," moaned Wade.

"Don't move—this'll only take a second—I've gotta set your wing in place—"

"AAAAAHHH! THE PAIN!"

"And… here we go!" Bo quickly finished up his work. "There ya go, Wade! In, like, six weeks your wing will be all set again, pun intended!"

"You told me that wouldn't hurt!" cried Wade, pointing an accusing finger at Bo. His other arm, now safe in its splint and sling, was held by his side, where it would have to remain for six weeks.

"Like, you were moving, dude," said Bo matter-of-factly. "I had to reset your wing."

"If you weren't such a good friend of mine, I would have totally lost all trust in you just then!" cried Wade accusingly. "But as I'm going to die anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter—"

"_Dude."_ Bo pressed his hand against his face and shook his head slowly. "You're _not _gonna die."

"Oh, Colonel Sanders butcher me!"

Lanolin had arrived with Tonya, and the sheep had apparently told the chick what had happened to Wade thanks to her bear pit. Tonya ran to Wade's side, blubbering apologies.

"Holy barbeque sauce. I am _so_ sorry! If I had known that an innocent would be seriously harmed by my pranks, I wouldn't have dug that pit in the first place. I mean, emotional humiliation, sure. I'm okay with that. Especially to a guy like Buffy Bucky who deserves it. But you? You poor thing, you didn't do anything! You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time—and if it weren't for me you wouldn't be hurt! I'm so terrible!"

"I wish Roy felt this bad about his pranks," Lanolin muttered.

"Yeah, but, like Roy's never hurt anyone, sis. Physically, I mean," Bo reminded her.

"Thank sod Mom isn't here, otherwise I'd be dead right now," said Tonya.

"Like I'm going to be dead in a few scant minutes?" cried Wade dramatically.

Tonya blinked. _"You?_ The sheep told me you only broke a wing!"

"Like, he did," said Bo. "But Wade has a tendency to overreact to things like this, man… uh, I mean, girl."

"I'm _not _overreacting!" cried Wade dramatically. "Nothing this bad has ever happened to me before!"

"It's not gonna kill ya, you drama queen," said Lanolin, rolling her eyes.

"Regardless of whether or not you'll live, and I have a feeling you will, but…" Tonya took Wade's good wing in her own and looked up at him, sadly apologetic. "I'm so sorry that this had to happen to you… Wade."

"Oh…" Wade shrugged. "That's alright, it's not like your death was your fault, uh…"

"Tonya."

"Tonya," finished Wade. Despite the fear that was racking every nerve of his body at his impending (but surprisingly slow in coming) death, he couldn't help but smile at the young hen. She, unlike that terrifying Buck, had actually bothered to learn his name!

"Well, gang…" Orson had just entered the barn.

"Did you get rid of him, or did you decide to be 'nice' to the 'poor' rooster and let him stay?" Lanolin spat out.

Orson sighed, causing Lanolin, Bo, and Tonya to sigh as well. They knew perfectly well what the outcome of Orson's plea had been before he even divulged it. "I explained the whole situation to him, but the farmer is adamant. We need a rooster here. And before you ask me if I suggest that he just get a _new _rooster altogether," said Orson quickly, cutting off Lanolin before she had a chance to raise a protest, "yes, I did suggest that. But apparently Buck is a superior breed of rooster, very rare and valuable, and…"

"But he's violent!" cried Tonya. "He hurt Wade!"

"Yeah, did you think to mention that, genius?" Lanolin snapped.

"I _did _bring that up," said Orson unhappily. "And the thing is, if it had been anyone else he might have relented and gotten rid of Buck. But… unlike the rest of us, Wade isn't the farmer's property. As far as the farmer cares, Wade, you're just a cowardly duck who wandered on the farm wanting a safe place to stay."

"There's a lot of truth to that," Wade pointed out.

"So, like, you're saying that since the farmer doesn't technically own Wade, he doesn't care if he got hurt?" Bo clarified.

Orson nodded. "That's the gist of it, yes."

"That's a load of bull," snapped Lanolin. "Wade's a big help around here, regardless of whether or not he's the 'farmer's property'!"

"And regardless of how many times I have abandoned my duties to run off in a panic!" Wade threw in.

"Look, you guys… The farmer's not going to get rid of Buck," said Orson, sounding defeated. "He's not going to just throw his prize rooster out on the street."

"Well, then, _we'll _get rid of him!" cried Tonya. "The Tonya Treatment has only just begun! I can humiliate that guy so badly his _kids _will be born blushing! You just leave it to me, Porky, and I'll—"

"Tonya," said Orson, grabbing her beak and shutting her up, "I don't want you to harass Buck anymore."

"_What?" _cried Tonya.

"Aw, come on!" cried Bo.

"She's the _only _one of us who can get rid of him now!" cried Lanolin. "You can't tell her to stop!"

"Lanolin, I'm as fed up with Buck as you are, but there's nothing we can do about it! And if Tonya keeps this up, someone's going to get hurt. Wade's already broken a wing—next time it could be worse. Besides, Tonya, your exploits are only aggravating Buck and making him mad—and he might hurt _you._ In fact, he already did. I don't want to see you getting hurt again."

"Me either," said Wade. "He hurt you? _Ooh,_ he's scary and low-down!"

"It didn't hurt that bad," muttered Tonya. "Besides, I can stand it in the name of getting rid of him."

"Uh… unless if I was seeing things, I seem to recall him _strangling _you," said Orson.

"Now look—" began Tonya.

"You've got to stop, Tonya," said Orson firmly. "You don't want your mother coming back to a dead child, do you?"

Wade made a squeaking noise of horror.

"Like, stop exaggerating, man," said Bo. "You're scaring Ducko here."

"I'm not going to let him—"

"Tonya! No more tricks, pranks, anything!"

"You're not my mother," sulked Tonya, although by the way her shoulders slumped, it was obvious that she had given in to Orson's pleading.

"It's for your own protection—and everyone else's," said Orson gently. "Remember, it was one of your attacks on Buck that gave Wade his broken wing."

"Thanks for the guilt trip," sighed Tonya. "Look, I'll… I'll lay off Buck, okay?" She snorted. "Doesn't matter much anyway—pretty soon, Mom'll be back with Booker, Sheldon, and Roy, and then things will change! Then we'll drive him off of here!"

"Tonya—" Orson began.

"Look, us chickens gotta stick together, and us chickens have a _right _to kick out another annoying chicken. I can't do it on my own, but with my mom and brothers back, we'll get him outta here. Trust me."

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Lanolin. "The sooner we get that creep outta here, the better."

"Like, ditto," said Bo. "I don't wanna see all of us on the farm wearing slings on our arms."

"And I don't want to see the rest of you guys dead like me—" Wade began.

"_YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIE!"_Orson, Bo, Lanolin, and Tonya all bellowed.

"If you say so," squeaked Wade, who had instantly shrunk down, almost inside his inner tube.

"I'd better go check on my siblings," said Tonya. With a quick nod to Orson, Bo, and Lanolin, and a friendly smile to Wade, she walked out of the barn and to the henhouse, mulling over everything that had just happened in her mind.

Were they _trying _to make her feel like manure, or did it just accidentally happen that way? Tonya irritably kicked up a patch of dirt, sending it flying. They sounded just like her mother—it wasn't like she dug that trap expecting the duck to fall in! She was trying to get rid of that damn rooster—and of all people, Wade would appreciate his departure the most! Things would only continue to get worse if Buck wasn't kept on his toes all the time.

But… Tonya had made a promise, and seeing how shocked Wade had been at the mention of her getting hurt was enough to cement that promise in her mind. She said she wouldn't continue to harass Buck—and she wouldn't. She was a hen of her word.

The rustling of stray grass and dirt next to her informed her that her brother Alexander was there, sitting next to her—of course it was Alexander, none of her other siblings was so close to her to sit down by her when she was obviously upset. "So, uh…" Alexander began. "What are you going to do to Buck tomorrow?"

"Nothing," said Tonya. Alexander gave her a look of honest confusion. Tonya sighed. "Wade—the duck—he fell into that trap. Actually, Buck _pushed _him in. But anyway, his wing is broken and he's in a lot of pain because of something _I _did. I don't want to hurt innocent people anymore. Besides," she spat out, "Orson told me I couldn't harass Buck anymore."

"Why not?" asked Alexander softly.

"Because he doesn't want to see anyone else get hurt either," sighed Tonya. "I guess… I guess I can see where he's coming from. But how are we supposed to get rid of him?"

The siblings were quiet for a moment.

"I'm sure you'll think of something, Tonya," Alexander finally said, wrapping his small wings around her waist in a brotherly hug. "You're really smart."

Tonya returned the hug, although she wasn't sure she could share Alexander's optimism. How could she get rid of that slime bag by being… _nice?_ And how would they live on the farm if he continued to live there—what if he hurt Wade again? What if he hurt Alexander?

What was she supposed to do?

O.o.O

(AN: That chapter was more of a filler… sorry, but hey, those filler chapters are needed sometimes. Hopefully next chapter it'll get more interesting… either that or this story will fall flat on its face, as I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to end it. I should never again start a story without knowing exactly how it'll end—yeah, like THAT will ever happen. ;)

And please, someone, slap me upside the head before I try to romantically pair up Wade and Tonya. Aarrgh, damn plot bunny! Must… get… random… pairing… out… of… head…

See you next chapter, if you can still put up with me… I don't know how you guys do it. Heh. But seriously, chapter next ahoy… see you then!)


	12. The Passing of the Book

(AN: Wow, I had no clue how fast this story was winding down! And how fast I'm getting updates up for it, ha ha! I'm on FIRE. Sizzle.

Oh yeah, and by the way, Lou, if you're still reading this… look, I give up… if you can't give me a constructive criticism telling me exactly WHAT it is about my story that you don't like so I can fix it, then please… STOP READING THIS STORY. Seriously. (slams head against desk) You're giving a nineteen-year-old gray hairs, and that's just wrong.

And to the rest of you… the usual thanks and next chapter stuff here! Chapter twelve ahoy!)

O.o.O

The next three days drug out insanely for all those involved.

Roy, Joanna, Booker, and Sheldon couldn't for the life of them remember what way they had traveled by the time they all met each other. The only vague clue they could remember was that they had left the farm traveling east, and thus they trekked back in a more or less westwardly direction. However, none of the landmarks they were passing looked familiar, causing Booker and Roy to hopefully suggest that they just give up.

But finally, on the third day, they encountered a rock that bore a striking resemblance to Jay Leno, and before Roy could stop himself, he let out a, "Hey! I remember passing that!"

"So do I!" cried Booker, also without thinking.

"Me too!" cried Sheldon.

"And so did I," said Joanna, smiling. "That means we must be close."

"Uh, I mean…" Roy desperately tried to find an alibi. "No, I'm wrong! I actually went by this rock that looked like Weird Al Yankovic—"

"Too late, fruit cake," said Joanna smugly.

"Thanks a lot," growled Booker.

"Hey, you think _I_ want to go back?" cried Roy.

O.o.O

Those three days were equally tedious for the animals on the farm, too.

After about a day of moaning, Wade came to the rather shocking conclusion that he wasn't going to die. This revelation to him launched him into a "my life will be forever changed from my near death experience," and everyone—even Bo and Orson—couldn't put up with him anymore. So he was left to give his "changed duck" speak to Tonya, who only grudgingly put up with it because, after Orson had issued the cease-and-desist ultimatum, she had nothing better to do.

And Buck, just as Tonya had predicted, wasn't laying off. In fact, he seemed to think that he had finally intimidated Tonya to a state of helplessness and was strutting around the farm even more proudly than usual. The hens were all starting to get sick of him (finally!), but all they did was whisper behind his back. Orson was trying to ignore the whole thing, and thus locked himself in the barn at all hours to read his books. Lanolin grumbled constantly, but Bo kept calming her in an attempt to prevent an explosion. Which was probably a good thing.

But Tonya couldn't stand it anymore. Promise or no promise, Buck needed punishment and he needed it _now._ But Tonya was a flexible hen. Oh yes, the Tonya Treatment could entail many different forms of dishing out humiliation!

So on the fourth morning, Tonya went down to the pond and dipped her wing into it, knowing full well what lived in that certain pond—fresh water crabs.

After many an "Ouch!" Tonya finally had three nasty snapping crabs to stick in Buck's bed.

Sure, it was totally not her style, but desperate times called for desperate measures! And, oh boy, was Tonya desperate to get Buck out of her life.

Crabs in the bed… Wade should be safe from those, right?

With all the stealth that she could muster (which actually wasn't much, but hey, she tried), Tonya slipped into Roy's roost (which had been unceremoniously taken over by Buck) and slipped the crabs underneath the straw and hay lining the "bed". And, just as sneakily, she crept out of the roost and, as innocent-looking as possible, sat down and plucked a blade of grass, pealing it into pieces.

That really hadn't helped her feel better. Despite her fondness for a well-laid-out prank, Tonya was more of an instant gratification seeker, and having to wait until Buck hit the sack late at night… actually, he might not even go in there that night anyway. He was lately spending most of his nights in the henhouse, doing heaven knows what. Actually, heaven really had nothing to do with it. Tonya and her siblings had taken to sleeping outside.

What boiled Tonya's blood the most is that she had caught Buck throwing suggestive glances at her sisters, who, like Tonya herself, were now sporting just as many white feathers as yellow. Buck was probably even having sick lusty thoughts of Tonya herself, despite their hatred for each other. Tonya wouldn't hold it against him. Which wasn't to say that she liked it. Actually, the thought of being Buck's sexual plaything gave Tonya an honest-to-goodness vomit reflex… and she wouldn't wish that atrocity on any of her sisters, either!

"A couple of lousy crabs isn't going to send him away," moaned Tonya to herself, absentmindedly ripping the blade of grass to shreds. "I can't do this on my own. I need Mom and Roy back…"

O.o.O

Tonya was about to get her wish.

"I never knew the farm looked this bright!" marveled Sheldon, still eagerly taking in every new sense that hatching had allowed.

"I never knew it could look this intimidating," growled Booker.

"Oh, nonsense," said Joanna offhandedly. "It's the farm, your home!"

Roy groaned to himself. He, like Booker, had been not-too-secretly hoping that they would never find the farm, and they'd just wander the earth forever, free and away from that darn rooster hierarchy. "So, what's the plan now, Jo? Just plop back in and act like nothing happened?"

"No, I actually have a plan… or at least the beginnings of one," Joanna admitted. "I'm going to go to the henhouse and talk with the hens and try to band us all together to get rid of Buck."

There was a pause.

"And then…?" Roy prompted.

"Well… I haven't gotten that far yet," said Joanna, a bit testily. "This is what happens when an author starts a story without giving any thought to its ending…"

"You can't blame everything on that girl," sighed Sheldon.

"Well, we'll come up with an ending ourselves!" said Roy, trying to sound confident. "Who needs an author, anyway? We're smart, we can come up with ways ourselves! Which—" Roy threw his head back in a dramatic manner, causing his comb to flap back and forth—"which I have a feeling will benefit from the tricks I can pull from out under my sleeve!"

"You don't have sleeves," said Sheldon innocently.

"It's a figure of speech," sighed Roy.

"Well, we'll leave you to your toys, Roy," said Joanna with a smirk. "Come on, Booker and Sheldon, let's go see how well your siblings have fared."

"With Tonya in charge, I'll be surprised if they're all still alive," mumbled Booker, as they headed down the hill towards the henhouse.

"I'd better go to my roost and find some supplies," said Roy with a grin. "Yeah, so I'm violating the hierarchy of roosters here… but so what? It's fun!" Cackling with laughter, he ran to his dwelling, already coming up with a dozen things he could do to Buck.

Tonya, who was still ripping apart grass leaves in front of Roy's roost, dropped her grass leaves abruptly upon seeing Roy back. "Oh my sod! You're back!" she cried out.

"Yeah, I'm back alright," said Roy with a bit of a sigh. Undoubtedly, he was about to follow that statement with a woeful moan about how he was coming back as a shamed outcast, but Tonya didn't allow that. Before he could blink, she was hugging him fiercely.

"Finally! Finally you can help me get rid of Buck!" she cried.

"Get rid of Buck?" asked Roy. "You aren't… Tonya, are you?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out!"

Roy smirked. "Your mom and brothers seemed to think that you would have gotten rid of him by now."

"I might have," sulked Tonya, "but this one day, when I dug a tiger pit that he fell in—"

Roy barked out a laugh. "You did what? That's genius, Tonya, genius!"

Tonya flashed a smile. "Thanks. Anyway, that expletive deleted rooster intimidated Wade into getting him out of there, and in thanking him, pushed him in—Wade's got a broken wing now because of my trap, and Orson made me promise to lay off the pranks."

"Are you serious?" cried Roy. "Wade with a broken wing… no pranks from you… this is worse than I thought, and I thought it would be pretty bad to begin with." He began pacing the ground, muttering under his breath.

"Oh, don't worry…" Tonya smiled mysteriously. "I haven't completely stuck by my word. Don't tell Mom. But anyway, Buck's going to find a little surprise waiting for him when he tries to get a little shut-eye. By the way, don't sleep in your roost. Buck took it over—"

"My _roost?"_ Roy flung his arms out in horror. "Not my roost! That's it, he's going down. I've got a couple of ideas—"

"So do I," interrupted Tonya. "We'll get him out of here. By the way…" She smiled in a playfully malicious way. Tonya had told her jokes to every hen and every chick, and they were all quite sick of her jokes (and knew the punch lines by now anyway). But here was someone who hadn't heard her jokes yet, and according to Booker and Sheldon, he was more of a joker than her! So, with that infamous Tonya smile, she looked up at Roy and asked:

"How do crazy people get through the forest?"

Roy opened his beak, about to say, "Why do you want to know?" but stopped short when he saw her smile. Oh, of course! It was a joke! And she thought she'd stump him! She obviously didn't know that she was dealing with the master of joke-telling. Why, that was the oldest one in the book! That was…

That was…

"Uh… they, uh… in a straight jacket? No, that doesn't make sense… uh…" He slumped his shoulders in defeat. "I give up. How _do _crazy people get through the forest?"

Tonya grinned. "They take the psycho path."

Roy laughed—he _laughed! _When was the last time he had laughed at someone else's joke? They rarely compared to his… but obviously this chick had inherited his fine taste in humor. No sense letting an opportunity like this pass him by!

"Alright, I'll admit, that was a pretty good joke, but try _this _one on for size: What does an army general kiss under at Christmas time?"

Tonya thought for a moment. "An army general… oh, I got it! Missile toe!"

"You're good," muttered Roy.

"Here's one," said Tonya, continuing, "that any chicken should appreciate: Two chickens were talking and one chicken said to the other chicken, 'Who is your favorite music composer?' The second chicken responds, 'Bach bach bach!'"

"Oh yeah? Well, how about this: Do you know who Mahatma Gandhi was?"

"He was that human being with the glasses and the loin cloth, why?" Tonya asked, a bit confused.

"Good. Well, as you probably know, he walked barefoot most of the time, so he got a lot of calluses on his feet. He didn't eat much, which made him very frail, and thanks to the food he DID eat, he often had bad breath. So, what would you call him?"

Tonya just stared.

"Come on, guess! Hee hee, you'll never get it!" Roy giggled.

"No, I never will. Tell me."

Roy was giggling so much that he was having trouble getting the punch line out. "He's a… he's a… a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis!" Roy could hardly breathe by this point, his laughs were so hearty.

Tonya blinked. "I don't get it…"

Roy sighed. "Here's another one: What do you get from a pampered cow?"

Tonya thought for a moment. "Not sure… what _do _you get from a pampered cow?"

"Spoiled milk."

Tonya finally got a giggle from one of Roy's jokes. Roy grinned proudly.

"Okay, you got me," said Tonya. "But here's one for you: What do you call a midget fortune teller who's just escaped from prison?"

"Oh, I've heard this one before!" cried Roy, snapping his wings, trying to remember. "A… a… a small medium at large! There, I got you. Now here's another one: Why is Saudi Arabia free of mental illness?"

Tonya thought for a moment… "Uh… look, you've got the advantage of age over me here! I've only heard very few jokes in my life! I give up. Why is it?"

"There are nomad people there," said Roy. He and Tonya both laughed.

When Tonya was silent, Roy asked her, "Do you have any more jokes?"

Tonya shrugged. "Not really. The only place I pick up my jokes are from the other hens, and they don't tell jokes that often. I'm glad I got to talk with you, though; now I have more jokes to tell them all!"

Despite Tonya's smile, Roy couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. She had a great delivery tone, she was smart, and she obviously liked to make people laugh—but only a handful of jokes!

Suddenly, he got an idea.

"Wait right here," he said, running into his roost. He shuddered a bit upon seeing the inside of it—Buck had made a total mess of things! Fortunately, it looked like Roy's bookshelf—not nearly the size of Orson's, but still a pretty decent collection of books, mostly joke books—hadn't been touched. Doing a quick scan of his collection, he pulled out "Joe Miller's Joke Book" and ran back outside, to where a rather puzzled Tonya waited.

"Here—this book's a classic. I've probably told each one at least a dozen times, it's time you had a go at it!"

Tonya gave Roy a rather ashamed, sheepish smile. "Thanks for the book, Roy, but… I can't read."

"You can't read?" cried Roy in shock. "Boy, would Orson have a time of day with you… look, I'll teach you."

"You'll teach me?" repeated Tonya, awestruck.

Roy shrugged. "Sure. Reading's not that difficult, and you're a smart little hen—you'll pick it up fast, I know it."

"How about my brothers and sisters?" asked Tonya. "Will you teach them? They're just as smart as I am."

"Well, Booker and Sheldon already know how to read, but yeah, I could take on your other siblings. How many would that be?"

"Well, there's ten of us, so without Booker and Sheldon there's eight of us. But that's not really important to figure out right now. I take it Mom brought you back—and I want her help for getting rid of Buck too. Is she at the henhouse?"

"Yeah, she, Booker and Sheldon went there." Roy handed Tonya the joke book and the two of them began walking towards the henhouse. "Oh yeah, and by the way… guess what Sheldon did when he was out on his own?"

"What?"

"He hatched."

"Okay, now _that's_ a joke that's hard to believe."

"No, I'm serious! Wait 'til you see him!..."

"You're pulling my leg…"

"You just wait and see…"

O.o.O

(AN: (starts laughing insanely) Can you tell that I share Roy and Tonya's love of bad puns? I visited a number of websites to find those—had to sift through a bunch of less-than-appropriate jokes too, but there you go… Oh yes, the word "halitosis" means bad breath, if you didn't know. I didn't know until looking it up in a dictionary. (And I believe that that joke will now be on my all-time favorites list.)

Not much happening in this chapter either, you say? Think again! It was about time Roy and Tonya met each other! Hopefully by next chapter, they (and by they, I mean I) will come up with a plan of how to get Buck off the farm. But until then, happy trails to you all! I'll be gone on a mission trip from March 18-25, so there will more than likely be no updates 'til then. But with the rate I update, you probably wouldn't have expected it anyway. Ha ha. But I digress. See you next chapter!)


	13. Bending Reality

(AN: I'm back from my mission trip! Obviously. ;) Ain't it funny how you think for days of an answer, and then you finally come up with one so obvious that you're shocked that you didn't think of it right away? Well… that's what happened when I was desperately trying to come up with how our farm friends were going to get rid of Buck. The answer was so obvious… but anyway, you'll find out. Here's the next chapter!)

O.o.O

Later that day, Joanna called a meeting in the hen house. Somehow, Orson, Roy, Wade, Bo, and Lanolin managed to squeeze in to the small space already occupied by all the hens and chicks.

"I'm sure you all know why I called this meeting," Joanna began, quieting down the chatter. "There is an abomination living on our farm with us—an abomination by the name of Buck. Now, I know that most of you hens seemed to be infatuated with him, but you've got to agree with me that—"

"—he's a sexist jerk? Yeah, that's putting it lightly," one of the hens interrupted.

Joanna, although expecting that the hens would finally come around, couldn't help but chuckle. "Wow, I knew I was gone for awhile, but your opinions changed _that fast—_"

"He doesn't care about us at all!" cried another hen. "We're just objects to him—we're not even individuals!"

"Exactly!" Joanna shouted, pounding a fist into her wing. "So will you girls help me get rid of him?"

"YES!" all the other hens shouted.

Roy smiled. "I love you girls!"

"So…" Joanna dusted off her wings thoughtfully. "Anyone got any ideas of how to get rid of him?"

"Sure, I've got a couple of ideas," said Lanolin darkly. "Grabbing him by the neck and literally booting him out comes to mind—"

"We can't do it like that," Orson interrupted. "Remember, as much as we really need him out of here, Buck is still—"

"—the farmer's property!" Booker, Tonya, Lanolin, and Bo all finished in unison.

"But how do we get rid of him then?" asked Sheldon. The sound of his voice brought Tonya into a fit of giggles.

"You really do look ridiculous, bro," she said.

"Aw, be quiet!" cried Sheldon, as all of his siblings, even Booker, began to giggle.

"We could humiliate him and make him want to leave," said Roy, getting back on topic. "I mean, that's how you guys got rid of _me _on more than one occasion."

"True, that could work, but be specific, dear—_how _do we humiliate him?" Joanna asked.

"Well…" Roy hesitated.

"Maybe, like, get some other rooster on the farm, have all you girls like him, and announce that Buck has been dethroned?" Bo suggested.

"But where do we get another rooster on such short notice?" Orson asked.

"And what if _he _wants to stay?" grumbled Roy.

"And what if the farmer wants Buck to stay anyway?" Tonya threw in. "You said, Orson, that the farmer really wants to keep him, since he's a prize-winning rooster and all."

"Well, then, we make the farmer see what a jerk Buck is!" cried Lanolin. "Maybe we could get Buck to cause damage to the farmer's property, or insult his wife, or something!"

"That's a good idea," said Orson thoughtfully. "It would rally the farmer around, that's for sure, and Buck's got to respect his authority."

"Again, guys, that's a good idea," said Joanna, sounding a bit irritated, "but you're being too vague. _How _do we get him in a situation like that, and make sure that it works as planned?"

There was a long silence.

"Wait… wait!" Wade suddenly shouted, the first time the duck had spoken during the meeting. "Methinks I have an idea that might actually work!" He ran over to Orson and began mysteriously whispering something in Orson's ear, causing Orson's expression to transform from annoyed to curious to "sudden revelation" to triumphant.

"You're right!" said Orson, as everyone else looked on in utter confusion. "And Buck won't be expecting that at all either—because I haven't had time to do that lately, and he doesn't know!"

"Doesn't know _what?"_ cried Roy.

Orson grinned. "Buck doesn't know what happens when I… read a book."

"Ooh…" Roy, Lanolin, Bo, Booker, and Sheldon all breathed.

"I don't get it," said Tonya. "What happens when you read a book?"

"When Orson reads a book, he _gets into it_, and whether they want to or not, everyone else does too," said Roy with a sigh.

"I can't help that I have an overactive imagination!" cried Orson. "How else do you think I cope doing menial chores on a farm in between being constantly bullied by three gorilla-like brothers?"

"Could you _please _explain what's going on?" Joanna cried. "How does a pig reading a book get rid of a rooster?"

"Whenever Orson reads a book, his mind goes wild!" cried Roy. "He gets so completely immersed in whatever it is he's reading that the rest of us do too! There was that time he was reading _Brave New World_ and I suddenly began muttering that I was sure glad that I wasn't an Epsilon—"

"Or the time he read _Hunchback of Notre Dame _and I began ringing bells in a tower," Wade threw in.

"Or, like, that time he was reading that book on the history of Looney Tunes and I suddenly grew rabbit ears," added Bo.

"Or the time he was reading the yellow pages and I turned into a Laundromat," Sheldon sighed.

"That's… weird," said Tonya doubtfully. "How come your reading didn't affect us here in the henhouse? We're on the farm, too."

Orson shrugged. "My fantasies tend to involve what I know. I didn't know you guys, so you weren't in them."

"But now you're saying that you're going to read a book and imagine Buck in the worst situation someone could possibly be in that book and…" Joanna asked.

"And either it will cause him to do some damage to the farmer's property in real life, or it'll confuse him so much that he'll _want _out," Orson finished.

"Alright." Joanna shrugged her wings, obviously doubting this dubious talent that Orson supposedly had. "So what book are you going to read, huh?"

"I'll go look through my bookshelf right now," said Orson, hurrying out of the henhouse.

"This is insane," Joanna muttered. "How am I supposed to believe we're going to get rid of him just by some pig reading a book?"

"Trust us on this one, Mom," said Booker. "Orson reads like nobody else you've ever seen before."

"Shh!" Alexander, who was standing by the door of the henhouse, suddenly silenced everyone still in the coup. "Someone's coming, and he's yelling really loudly—I think it's Buck!"

"Oh—" both Roy and Tonya began. The "Oh" was probably about to be followed by a questionable word which might have bumped up the rating of this story, but luckily they were interrupted when the visitor, who was indeed Buck, stormed into the room…

…a small crab dangling off his butt.

Everyone—all the hens, all the chicks, Roy, the sheep, and even Wade all burst out into laughter.

"_SO!" _Buck bellowed, silencing everyone in a heartbeat. He grabbed Roy and flung him against the wall. "So you _are_ back and decided to get even with me, huh? You put some of your little crab friends in my bed, huh? Thought you'd be so clever!"

"Why would I put crabs in my _own bed?" _Roy gasped out.

"It's not your bed anymore, it's—" Buck suddenly stopped. "No…" he said to himself. "No, you _wouldn't _have put them in there, because you wouldn't have known that I was in your coup…" He spun around and glared murderously at Tonya. _**You!**_

"Of course it was me," snapped Tonya. "Don't give Roy the credit for my hard work!"

With an inhuman (inchicken?) roar of rage, Buck lunged for Tonya, undoubtedly aiming his wings at her neck once again. Tonya, forgetting to keep her emotions in check, gasped.

And Alexander flung himself between his sister and her aggressor. _"Don't touch my sister!" _he shouted bravely.

Buck snorted in laughter. "I can push through you like you were made of Jello, little kid."

"You'll have to push through me too!"

Buck blinked at who was standing with Alexander, blocking the rooster from Tonya. _"Duck?_ Oh boy, you sniveling coward, all I have to do is snap my fingers and you'll be running off in the other direction!"

"M-maybe," said Wade, his voice faltering a little. "But I won't let you hurt my friend!"

"And _I _won't let you hurt Wade, or my brother, or my sister," said Booker firmly, joining them.

"Me too," said Sheldon, now also standing defiantly between Buck and Tonya.

And without a word, the other siblings—Ryan, Logan, Alison, Karley, Julius, and Nicole—had joined their brothers and Wade.

A split second after that, and Tonya's parents—understandably—were added to the mix.

"Don't—" Joanna snapped.

"—you—" Roy continued.

"—_dare_—"

"—touch—"

"—my—"

"—daughter!"

Buck's jaw dropped, looking for the first time to be a little overwhelmed. "But—you—get out of my way, seriously!"

All the hens joined the group, giving Buck defiant stares.

"What? Not _you _ladies, too!" gasped Buck. "I thought you _liked _me!"

"Face it, creep, _nobody _likes you anymore," Lanolin spat out. She and Bo were also standing between him and Tonya, who, although nobody could see her, was smiling shakily and even tearing up.

"I've never felt so loved," she squeaked out, in a voice so quiet that only Alexander and Wade heard her.

Buck stared at his opposition, blubbering for words. "But—but—you—_**Listen, dammit!"**_he finally roared. "Whether you guys want me here or not is out of the question! The only thing that matters is that I _am _here, and I am here _for good! _No matter how many crabs that terrible monstrosity Tonya puts in my bed, and no matter how many of you defend her nasty little ways, I'm here for good, whether you like it or—"

He stopped short, lurched a bit, and blinked in confusion. "What the—?"

Most of the others in the coup shared his confusion, but Roy, Wade, Booker, Sheldon, Bo, and Lanolin all exchanged knowing winks.

They knew all too well the sensation of reality being bended when Orson was immersed in a book.

O.o.O

(AN: Sorry for leaving you on a cliffhanger, but now I need to come up with the book! LOL. Don't worry though, I like to read about as much as Orson, so I probably won't have _too _much trouble. The next chapter will probably be the last, sniff—I'll miss this story, but I'm anxious to move on to new things as well. (cough) But I'll save all the mushy stuff for the next chapter's author's note. See you all then!)


	14. Good One, Comrade!

(AN: Sorry for a bit of a wait… this chapter was torture to type out. Le sigh. But anyway, here it is, chapter the last! Enjoy your ride!)

O.o.O

Strangely enough, however, the feeling was short-lived… and everything looked exactly the same.

They were all still standing in the coup—nothing had changed. No one was wearing outlandish clothing, there was no ferocious monster waiting to tear them limb from limb, nothing. They were all still standing on the farm, and they all knew it.

Except… something _seemed_ different

Buck's eyes darted around, in total confusion. "Why… why do I suddenly want to draw up plans for a windmill?"

"A windmill?" Roy asked, just as confused as Buck was. He noticed Wade and Lanolin exchange befuddled glances between them, trying to figure out what book Orson was reading.

"Yes… think about it!" Buck cried out, as if moved by a powerful force within him. "Think of the work it would save! Sure, building it will be hard work, of course. But once it's done, we'll only need to work three days a week!"

"I'm against this," said Orson, suddenly appearing in the doorway. "What we have to focus on now is getting enough food to eat."

"That's not a concern! We won't starve!" cried Buck. "And besides, just think of all the work it could save in years to come…"

"I have no clue of what's going on," admitted Wade.

"Me either," said Roy, scratching his head.

"Four legs good, two legs bad!" Bo and Lanolin suddenly belted out.

Everyone stared and blinked.

"That's quite true, but stop interrupting me…" Buck shook his head in confusion. "What's going on here? Why am I talking about a windmill? Oh, I know, because it's a great idea! No! Yes! What am I _saying?"_

Orson made a low whistling sound.

And, from out of nowhere, nine vicious dogs suddenly leapt out and lunged straight for Buck.

Buck screamed, uttered a loud curse that I don't think I'll repeat here, and tore out of the door, the dogs fast on his heels. Everyone in the hen house gathered to the window and stared at the spectacle. Buck literally tore down through the fields, even climbing over a tractor and, in his attempt to flee, pushed against a handle so hard that it snapped in two. Once clear of the fields, Buck tore as far away as from the farm as he could, screaming as he ran.

Suddenly, the dogs disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. Orson gave a chuckle.

"That was too easy!" he said with a laugh. "Well, friends, I don't think we'll be seeing him around anymore."

"Just what book were you reading?" Roy asked. "We were still on a farm!"

"Of course we were!" said Orson. "I was reading _Animal Farm. _Come on, couldn't you suddenly feel like you were embracing communistic ideals?"

"Oh, so that's why I wanted to call everyone 'comrade'," Lanolin said sheepishly.

"I'm glad he broke the tractor," said Orson. "I can tell the farmer that he did that so if Buck ever _does _come back, the farmer won't be too keen on letting him back in."

"Where did those dogs come from?" Booker asked. "I mean, you weren't going to… _hurt _Buck, were you?"

"He sure would have deserved it," Roy, Joanna, Tonya, and Lanolin all muttered at once.

"No, he was never in any danger, Booker," said Orson. "They were imaginary dogs. They don't even exist in real life! Besides, even if they were real… I'm not sure if they could have hurt him. Buck was playing the part of a pig, he technically wasn't himself."

"Why didn't _you _play the part of the pig, man?" Bo asked.

"I did—I was Napoleon, and Buck was Snowball. In fact, technically I was the bad guy of the story. But in the story Snowball's the one who gets driven off the farm, so Buck had to be Snowball, right?"

"Do you suppose he'll come back after he realizes that those dogs aren't chasing him anymore?" Joanna mused.

"I doubt it," laughed Orson. "You see, that's why I chose to read _Animal Farm. _The setting was on your typical farm, so he wouldn't really realize that something completely wacky and off-the-wall was happening at all. The setting and characters hadn't changed, so once he realizes that the dogs aren't chasing him anymore, he'll either think it WAS real and keep his distance from us, or he'll just think he's gone crazy, and hopefully STILL keep his distance from us."

"So he's… gone for good, then," said Sheldon quietly.

Orson nodded. "I would assume so."

There was a heavy silence.

"That means…" Joanna said, "that means that we've only got one rooster on the farm again."

"Try to hide your disappointment," said Roy, rolling his eyes.

Disappointment, however, was certainly the last thing on all the hens' minds. For all the hens rushed over to Roy and hoisted him in the air. Inspired, Tonya, who with everyone else was watching the whole scene with a bemused expression, began to sing, "For he's a jolly good fellow…"

"Wow… you guys really _do _like me!" Roy sounded shocked, in a happy way, of course. "Talk about an ego boost!"

"That's the last thing YOU need," mumbled Orson, Wade, Booker, Sheldon, Lanolin, and Bo.

O.o.O

"And that's basically what happened about a week ago," said Orson. "We haven't heard anything of Buck's whereabouts, although it's my personal assumption that he's in a funny farm somewhere. And I don't mean an occasionally humorous farm like this one," he added. "Although, with all the crazy things that have happened around here, even after Buck left, I'm not so sure that _I _don't belong in a funny farm either… For example, Roy's teaching all of Joanna's children how to read, and they're picking it up _very _fast. I gave Ryan the book _The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins_ by Dr. Seuss yesterday, and he's read it five times—pretty good for someone who just started learning how to read a week ago!"

"Here you go, Orson!" Ryan suddenly interrupted Orson, running up and handing him a book. "Do you have anything else I could read? Like maybe that farm book you read to get rid of Buck?"

"_Animal Farm?"_ Orson asked. "I think George Orwell is maybe a bit advanced for you…"

"Can I try anyway?" asked Ryan. "Julius and Alexander want to read that one too. They were able to read the Dr. Seuss book you gave me."

"What about your sisters?"

Ryan made a face. "They're reading fashion magazines. Except for Tonya; she's reading all of Roy's bad joke books. I'd stay away from her, if I were you."

"Sound advice," agreed Orson with a shudder. "Well, if you think you really want to try Animal Farm, then go ahead." He handed a gleeful Ryan the book. "But if it's too hard for you, just come back here and get an easier one from me."

"Thanks!" said Ryan, running off with book in wing.

Orson smiled as he watched the chick—actually, more accurately, the young rooster, as all the chicks now sported more white feathers than yellow, and the boys were spouting combs, even the late-hatching Sheldon—go back to the henhouse to read with his brothers. "Who says that young people don't read anymore?" Orson mused to himself. "Well, not that there's much else to do around here, now that the harvest is over. I've been reading more of my George Orwell books again—after reading _Animal Farm, _I had the strongest urge to read the rest of his books, like _1984._ And even though it's autumn, the weather's been unusually warm and sunny, and we're all taking advantage of it…"

Orson leaned forward a bit in his inner tube. "Someone on the farm has turned to something other than books though. Have you ever head of that saying 'in springtime, a young man's fancy turns to romance'? Well, a duck's fancy must turn to romance in the _fall,_ because—"

"A rose not half so fair as thee, my chicken fair—"

Orson sighed. "Wade… what are you trying to impress Tonya with _now?"_

"A flower," said Wade hastily. "It's probably not a rose… I don't know the difference between flowers. And it's kinda dead. Since it's autumn and all. But do you think she'll like it? I don't know if I could face rejection…"

"That _is _a rose, Wade."

"Oh, it is? …Is that a good thing?"

"Well, roses are typically symbolic as the flower of love…"

"That's good!"

"…but you do realize that they have thorns, right?"

"Th-thorns?" Wade choked out.

"Yep," nodded Orson. "And your finger is about an inch away from one right now."

Wade froze, mechanically dropped the rose from his left hand (his right arm still in its sling), and began to twitch and babble, the sure signs of an oncoming panic attack.

"Th—thaaaa…thor… thorrrrrr… THORNS! OH NO, AS IF I'M NOT IN ENOUGH PHYSICAL PAIN ALREADY! OH, HELP! LOVE HURTS!" With the rose thrown on the ground, Wada shot off like a rocket, screaming and panicking the whole way.

Orson sighed and shook his head. "I don't know if Roy knows about this yet… because I have a feeling if he did know, he wouldn't be too happy on the idea of Wade as a prospective son-in-law. Actually, I don't even know how he feels on the whole idea of inter-species relationships." Orson shuddered. "I don't know where _I _stand on that either, but I guess I'll try to be open minded. Anyway, Booker's still pretty much the same… he's still after those worms, but I hear that he's getting along with his mother much better now. And Sheldon—he's certainly made up for lost time! He'll always be a bit on the small side, I'm afraid, but he doesn't look quite as ill-balanced anymore." Orson laughed. "It seems that this whole 'Buck ordeal' has changed everyone, for better or for worse! Except Bo and Lanolin, I suppose. They're still pretty much the same, thank goodness!"

As if cued, Bo and Lanolin ambled on up, talking with one another.

"Like, I will admit, sis, usually not many people get under my skin like that, but that Buck was one bad egg, you know?"

"I agree with you one hundred percent, brother dear," said Lanolin.

Orson nearly dropped his book. "Okay, scratch that… Bo and Lanolin are actually _agreeing _on something! Well, anyway… that's about all I have…" Orson blinked. "Uh, you can fade out now. Really. It was nice talking to you, come back soon… read George Orwell, he's a good author… FADE OUT ALREADY!"

"Fine, fine! Sheesh!" cried the annoying author.

O.o.O

"…I swear there were dogs chasing me, and they were about to tear my hunky body to shreds, but I looked behind me and they were gone! I KNOW I wasn't imagining them… dogs, right behind me! I don't know where they came from, and I don't know where they disappeared to… you _do _believe me, don't you?"

"Of course we do, little rooster," said the man to Buck comfortingly. "Come with me, we'll make you feel aaaaaalll better." He lead Buck into the building, with the letters KFC across the top.

O.o.O

AN:

Oh my God, what a sickly twisted ending! I need to be punished. A nice five piece Buck dinner along with that duck/chicken pairing (I _told _you guys to talk me out of it!) and a hatched Sheldon… jeez, I need to be shot.

Well, anyway, 'tis over! (dusts hands) And what an enjoyable run I've had. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, you people who go by the names of **Nightw2, tbag2, loved your story, Terminator Hobbes, Speedfox, BlAngl1518, Anonymous But Interested, **and **Inspector Brown**. Oh yes, and lou, special thanks for your headache inducing reviews! Don't make it a habit though. I hate headaches.

If I ever right another Garfield/US Acres fanfic (not planning any right now, but you never know about future plans), I hope to see you all again! Thanks again for all the reviews, I'm so glad you all liked my silly story.

-Commander


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